


The City of Rust

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, F/F, Humor, M/M, Romance, Science Fiction, Smut, Supernatural - Freeform, Time Travel, Xeno, light carnage, superhero-ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:14:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where God-tier powers are transferable along classpect lines through the usual HS way (MOUTH TO MOUTH) and used for policing worlds, universes and so on;</p><p>Down-on-his-luck Karkat Vantas winds up entangled with Dave's life in more ways than one just as the other boy and co. deal with of a collapse of a city</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude: The Knight of Fuck You

Prelude: The (k)Night of Fuck You

A dark cloud passes over the roof of the twenty story building, Dave and the rest of his friends examine the sky mutely. Reality seemed very thin and weak to Dave, he stares at his left hand to reorient himself, his veins stand out like branching trees reaching towards his shaking fingertips.

Dave looks up again, the clouds pass over the sun, the sense of falseness turns his mouth into a hard straight line, before he can do anything about it he catches Karkats eyes.

They are alarmingly red, pits of magma surrounding dark pupils, dawe, his little troll-boy was all matured up.

A look which matched with the fact Karkat was giving him a very mature stare, eyebrows knitted together and eyes unblinking black suns on red satin.

Dave, ever so fucking slightly, bites his lip. He feels it too,

“do you, do he think he’ll come back?” John asks blankly to nobody,

“...I, I would think so.” Jade replies, they all stare up at the now clear skies. Dave considers shooting the breeze with his pals, but then he is being dragged backwards by the wrist.

He’s ten steps down a flight of decayed stairs when he speaks up,

“are you taking me to the zoo Papa? I want to see anything that isn’t a crow or a fucking giant lizard person, for real,” or at least he does something with his mouth that is words. He hopes it comes off as sarcastic enough, gotta maintain the brand.

“you’ve got to take your fucking God-tier powers back.” Karkat says shortly.

“not sure if you remember the first time we had that particular swap-meet, but that was one hell of a bumpy ride dude, like people died, you cried, a ghost girl was there…”

They turn from the stairwell into a rundown hallway with faded yellow carpet, this used to be an apartment building Dave senses.

“I can’t fly Dave. Despite going God-tier I am grounded for reasons of the universe most likely wanting to flip me off personally in every way possible. _Grounded_ , Like a grub out in the open waiting for the claws of a hungry claw-beast. Do I have to make a table of pros and cons for you Dave? Pro one, you can fly, you avoid falling, nothing like this ever happens again and we go on with our strangely related lives. What a beautiful fucking story, I came in my reasonable pajama pants,”

Karkat is taking off his shirt now, they may be quarreling but fuck if the pheromones weren’t in the air. Dave follows his lead and shuffles out of his purple asshole shirt.

“pro two: do what I fucking say,”

“yes sir,” Dave mumbles under his breath,

“what?”

“I said, _con_ , this sounds fucking exhausting and the number of things I ever feel like doing is so fucking finite right now bro. Short supply, the numbers too low, I am not the young spritely mass of man meat I was, I am now a reborn gentlemen, get a fucking beard and top hat up in here,”

“can you grow a beard?” Karkat asks,

“no actually, I don’t think so,” Dave responds conversationally, stroking his chin in perplexion,

“whatever, whatever,” Karkat picks a random room and shoves Dave into it, following after with his maroon cape swishing in after him. Dave hopes he looks only half as pretentious when he does that.

The room is dusty, well-made, but abandoned with one twin bed, a dresser and faded walls that expose pipes and holes in the surface to the outside. 

“this still leaves the question of how we do this again without everything literally coming apart at the seams while babies cry and like New Chicago collectively sheds a tear for ya boy here, whole city just one mega tear drop, drown fools in that shit,”

“the blue one switches her powers all the time,”

“oh come on dude don’t be an obtuse fuck-all, you know her name,”

“ _Roxy_ , says it’s easy after...you know,”

“so this is gonna have a utilitarian purpose I take it then,” Dave stumbles onto the bed and spreads his legs cheekily for a better view of _the package_ , Karkat expectantly splutters for a second but then steps his game the fuck up,

“stand up,” he orders, which was a turn of events leaving Dave almost fluttery inside.

Dave rises, if you know what he means, standing dumbly in front of the other very compact boy, who places his hands on Dave's chest with a considering look on his face,

“this _will_ have a utilitarian purpose, and in more ways than one, as in one of us just hit full maturation like a proverbial transportation device into a brick wall,” his brilliant red eyes flit up to matchup with Dave's, meeting them like hard iron rods plunged into water,

Dave gulps, wondering if he was in over his head,

“is maturation code for super horny?” Bravado though,

Karkat leans in, “let’s find out,” he practically purrs,

and okay Dave is definitely on the rise, he'd probably be floating off the ground if he still had his powers,

Karkat leans in for a hushed rough kiss, all chapped lips and high pressure, they had kissed before, but behind this one was a spark, a light, Dave can feeling an energy pass between them like an electric charge,

“that’s...that’s something,” Dave huffs as they pull away,

“yeah, well, I guess everything is possible by a fucking mouth collision,” Karkat articulates, referring to the fact you can also revive someone with a kiss, “like some sort of germ swapping fairytale where it’s ‘all okay’ after that one true spit-intake instead of a fuck-fest of people dying and having to fight a giant endless battle with the city and juju-infused bastards, what a dream come true, I love our system!”

“Tch, somebody forgot a chill pill,”

He rolls his eyes, “all I’m saying is this is a cheap way to get bullshit done and not in th-”

“wait, wait, wait,”

“what?” Karkat barks, Dave bends forward and kisses him again, they can discuss the messed up dynamics of the situation later.

Karkat leans into it and wraps his arms around Dave’s neck, sighing slightly into his mouth as Dave pulls their bodies together. He holds his hips as Karkat pitches his head back and allows for Dave’s tongue to find its way further into his mouth.

The kiss deepens into something soft and slow like thick honey snaking downwards and spooling onto the ground- aka fucking sweet.

Karkat’s hand latches itself into Daves hair, scraping his scalp and pulling on it, Dave takes a sharp intake of breath, Karkat smirks. He pushes Dave backwards until his knees hit the back of the single bed in the room, Dave sits his ass down on it, eyes never leaving Karkats.

“Oh wait, nah, this bed is so fucking dusty,” Dave observes as a puff of dust floats in the air as he hits the duvet,

“can’t you just, reverse it?” Karkat asks without thinking, eyes still hooded and hungry,

“not right now dude,” he says brushing on the floral print and watching the dirt swirl in the air, for the first time he misses the power to just reverse this shit till it’s new again.

“oh yeah… I should be more pissed off at you, _and_ the seers of bullshit, for all this...mostly you,” he gestures around generally and at his own God-tier clothing.

Dave slides his shades down and off his face to give Karkat a better skeptical look, “oh wow, really.”

“yeah really,” Karkat replies to his deadpan, “but first I'm going to fuck you.”

Dave forgets about the dust on the bed.

Karkat plants his knees on either side of him, kneeling on the bed on top of him, making Dave's face almost directly crotch level. Dave’s heart speeds up like a motor boat on tight-pants lake.

He nestles the inside of Karkats thigh, straining his neck to nip at his pelvis and naked hip bone right above Karkat's sagging maroon pants.

Before he can take his mouth to Karkat crotch-zone level 50 the other boy grabs his face again and takes in another long kiss with his cheeks cupped in Karkats hands.

The kiss is open mouth and sloppier this time, Dave soon finds himself on his back on the forgotten cott, no doubt coating his back in the dust. He somehow can’t get himself to care?

Karkats grey ridged tongue forces itself deeper, lapping at the roof of his mouth and intertwining with Dave's own. Oh right, that’s why he doesn't care.

Karkat is on top of Dave, hands and knees on the bed, Dave maneuvers his own knee to in between Karkat legs, the other boy gasps momentarily then expectantly ruts down onto it, humping it to get some friction for that alien cootch, yass.

Dave wiggles his eyebrows at him when Karkat looks up again, Karkat grabs his cheeks with both hands and pulls to make his them puff out absurdly, Dave pushes at his shoulder, he pushes back, they smile like juveniles at eachother.

“heh,” Dave chuckles, but is cut short by Karkats mouth is on his neck, biting and nipping. Karkat position himself in between Dave’s legs now and Dave instinctively wraps them around his lower back.

Karkat takes the chance to dig his hands into Dave’s ass, forcing him to arch his back off the bed as Karkat holds up his hips. The move also forces Dave to arch into Karkats groin, Dave grunts and throws his head back as sparks go off behind his eyes,

“mmh,okay, yes, man, that’sgood, and uh, gosh, you're holding like a lot ofme? Like freakish troll strength, like have Iever mentioned the muscles just like all over you, _muscles._ And it’s wow, thatwas gay,” Dave babbles to himself unable to contain the word river that resembles the mouth control of a three old after bad sushi,

Karkat laughs at him this time, then folds him in half to kiss the side of his mouth, they both smile into the peck, then it deepens again,

Dave his absorbed by the hands kneading his ass like dough until his dick is roughly pushed against by a warm wet appendage, he looks down to see Karkats pants had sagged down, since he, whoa, hadn't had underwear on, hot, and his little trouser snake had popped out,

Dave was going to say as much until it started rubbing up against his contained cock and then downwards to his taint, obviously searching for a nook to wriggle into, he groans.

They make out while Karkats bulge aggressively rubs up on him, Dave pushing up into the probing and letting it moisten his thin pants, .

Dave is wholeheartedly surprised at how strong troll bulges are when the tenta-dick busts a seam up in his ill-made purple pants trying to get inside this choice china.

“Okay wow, that is some Hulk-Hogan rip open your pants shit right there,”

“pailing is something that all me is very about right now,” Karkat explicates, “we should,” he huffs, looking around, Dave grins, reaching for his own waistband,

Karkat is quicker and lifts up Dave's hips to shuffle off his pants, Dave somehow manages to kick off his shoes in the process as well, nice,

“your turn dude,” Dave says, Karkats pants already at his knees but not all the way off, he rolls off of Dave fiddling with getting them to go down his shins,

“woah there,” Dave grabs him to stop him from rolling off the bed, “got you,”

“fucking fuck, this bed is fucking small,” he says as he rights himself and struggles all the way out his maroon get up,

“yeah, couldn't you have chosen the _penthouse_ decrepit abandoned room?”

“sure, next time then asshole,”

“treat ‘em right or lose out man,”

“right, well the code-word is ‘my mouth is a vestige for my waste chute’ if anyones getting mistreated,”

“it’salright, the ghosts of this floral nightmare are gonna be hella excited to watch us get it on, like slime themselves-excited, need Egbert to get a vacuum _and_ mop to cleanup on aisle ghost apartment fuck-ville,” Karkat laughs despite himself, but answers grumpily,

“well I’m sure this conversation will be my purgatory when _I_ fucking bite it Strider, then watch you from the afterlife until you do something dumb enough to join me,”

“well if you think our banging is good enough to fucking die from I’m all in,”

Karkat boldly grabs Dave’s exposed dick, pumping the base, “it won’t be if we talk the whole time,”

Dave makes a small noise in the back of his throat, “Ican,,letsdo that,” he’s real great at words just, all the time.

They kiss again rhythmically as Dave helps Karkat pump his stiffy up and down, it feels fucking fantastic. Dave himself works his other hand in between Karkats legs to his wet nook, stroking its lips and outer cavity,

Karkat pulls back and gives him the most hooded bedroom eyes Dave had ever seen, he gulps, Karkat pushes him down so he’s fully on his back again.

Then he kneels on top of him, grabbing Dave’s wonder-worm and slowly aligning it with himself,

“Ilike where this,uh, _ah_ , going,” Dave manages as Karkat holds him firmly,

He descends, Dave moans with a gurgle in his throat when Karkats wet lips engulf the head of his cock, the warm feeling of flesh on flesh and alien ‘genetic material’ dripping down his cock overwhelms him.

Dave bites his lip to stop himself from saying anything stupid as Karkat slowly, very slowly, adjusts himself and then takes in more and more of Dave.

It was every bit of what Dave imagined it could be and more.

He reaches up and pats Karkats cheek when Karkat reaches near the base, “ya good?” He asks in hushed tones,

Karkat nods slightly, staring up at the ceiling in a trance, “it’s, it's good” he stammers out and then turns red in embarrassment. Dave grins but doesn’t make any ‘but of course’ ‘my mighty dick’ jokes.

Instead he slowly thrusts up into the silky insides of the alien ‘nook,’ it was a warm confined space that clenched heavenly around him now and then, it also had rough patches and strange lumps, but that was part of the xeno-space-experience, a ride enjoyed by all, mostly Dave, actually only Dave everyone the else can stay the fuck away.

Karkat makes low pleasure sounds and sometimes cricket noises from inside his chest, he’s surprisingly quiet in bed outside of loud moans and sometimes cries of ‘Dave,’ and ‘fuck.’

He gets into a rhythm riding Dave's dick cowgirl style up and down,

“mmsss,” he hissed out through teeth as Dave thrusts deeper into him, Dave is sweating like motherfucker and his back aches from arching up, but he’s not sure he’s ever been so pleased with himself.

He places his hands on Karkats hips, helping guide him up and down, deeper inside of him, and fuck disney Dave thinks, _this_ is the most magical experience of a lifetime, magic happening here, see your homie-boyfriend ride that dick in ecstasy attraction party of Strider.

Dave can feel his own orgasm pooling in his lower abdomen as they keep going, he throws his own head back and gives into only the one sensation of warmth and the red caverns holding him.

“i’m,uh, thank,I, this is, uh, _Karkat_ ,”

They are locked in the sex-dance of the century when a loud crackle rips through the building, the noise carrying through the air like a whip.

Both boys jump at the sound, which is very uncomfortable considering the position.

Karkat scrambles off Dave’s lap, Dave is quick to follow him to the wall, the other boys juices running down his leg as he jogs over (gross).

Karkat peers out one of the holes in the wall, searching the sky anxiously.

Dave looks over his shoulder to the outside, the sky is now covered in dark grey clouds, it had began to rain- that wasn't very new.

Dave hears Karkat gulp,

“rain. Not what we expected I guess.” Dave pats his back.

“It doesn’t matter.” Karkat bites out, “he’s always already here blah, blah, this is why we're all...here. None of it matters.”

“what would you do if he comes back?” Dave whispers into Karkats ear,

“kill him,” he breathes vehemently,

“good plan. I like that one.” Dave leans in, his hand snakes over the other boys hip and then between his legs. His fingers roughly trace the lips of Karkats pussy. He shivers silently, hands bracing against the wall.

Dave is working his fingers into him, slowly and teasingly when another crack of thunder shakes the air like the screech of a violin played poorly.

Karkat jumps violently,

“shh” Dave coos and draws him closer to his chest by wrapping his other arm over his front, which was totally unrelated to Dave being freaked out by the storm Gods as well.

“can I?” Dave starts,

“yeah, yes,” Karkat nods briefly,

Dave aligns himself again, stroking Karkats pussy all the while and then leads the head of his prick into the warmth of clenching hole again,

“oh God,” Dave moans embarrassingly loudly which he cuts off by biting the inside of his cheek harshly, he was twenty something and moaning was amateur hour, but Karkat mouth is pulling up at the edges and he is leaning into the intrusion, enjoying the lewd display. Douche.

Dave starts thrusting shallowly, then roughly, grabbing at his hips enough to bruise and Karkat breathing out in sharp gasps.

The sex is less butter-honey and more adrenaline and crushing speed, the thunder proved anything could happen any fucking second, like dying or fighting the forces of evil in your birthday suit.

“say som...speak” Dave commands for reasons beyond even him.

“fuck you,” he breaths,

“if it feels good…”

“fine, fuck me, harder,” Dave speeds up even more, plunging all the way up to the base of his cock at this point.

He takes his hands off his hips and lays them over Karkats on the wall as he pushes into him, bracing their hands on metal pipes crisscrossing the naked walls,

“yes, fuck me, fuck me,” Karkat was getting into the words, heated and loud as his eyes screwed shut, he plants his feet farther apart to give Dave greater access. Dave thrusts to meet his ass cheeks, balls deep (hellyeah), living the dream,

He leans in and bites Karkat's ear, it was time for the endgame, fireworks, strike out, uh, sports goal,

Dave takes one hand off of Karkats and down between his legs again,

“Imgoona make you feel so good,” Dave is able to basically articulate, hand trailing up and down his abdomen, he traces the other boys hip bones until Dave can almost feel impatience radiating off of Karkat,

“if you,” huff, “think you're actually up to it? Unless you're planning on just fucking around until time ends with a very put outt~” the last part is strangled out through his clenched teeth when Dave does get to it.

Through deliberate strokes to his bulge, which, okay, Dave needed to multitask better with, trolls had so many moving parts, sex-parts, it was hard to keep up on all of them.

Dave then moves his hand to tease the skin of the snatch while thrusting into him, delicately playing with it- pushing on the sensitive ridges, while simultaneously harshly blitzkrieging inwards with his member.

Finally, Dave positions himself, bending Karkat back slightly to reach, yes, two soft globes in the back of Karkats cooch, ‘shame globes,’ trolls G-spots of shame or some shit.

Karkat makes a stifled noise of pure alien-expression, a type of motor in a snowstorm bubbling through his chest.

Dave picks up speed to the best of his ability, his body having been already tired-swore before this bodily-fluid exchange olympics.

“bucket,” Karkat finally relinquishes. Dave grins, the bucket in his sylladex at the fucking ready, he pulls it out and nudges it in between Karkats legs.

Finally he angles his dick upward, full friction on the “globes,” the walls of the alien-cherry started clenching and releasing rapidly, Dave pulls out in a hurry,

Karkat then cums in a silent gasp, eyes trained on the ceiling as he throws his head back, Dave holds him across the chest as he releases his material in a long consistent stream.

He trembles and shakes as trolls usually do through it, like washing machines, ie: fluids, vibrating, Dave pleased with getting it right, ect, ect.

The material sloshing out from the nook slows down, dribbling out down his legs gradually; Karkat becomes boneless.

Dave turns around to place the other boy onto the dusty ass bed when Karkat somehow straightens up and wobbles on his own two feet. Dave wasn't sure if he should be impressed or disappointed in himself that he could still walk.

Karkat gets down on his knees, Dave bites his lip, Karkat stares down Daves dick which is still slathered in his wetness, Dave thinks he somehow manages to get harder???

Karkat finally moves himself, licking Dave's shaft in its entirety from base to head, Dave mumbles something about rollercoasters and birthday parties.

Karkat sucks on the head next in one long motion, kinda like a vacuum except Dave can ignore the weird noises enough to be _really_ into it.

Dave is about the find nirvana and then maybe relive all his past lives at once when Karkat speaks up,

“okay Dave this is fun, but I have fun troll trivia for you, it’s a really good one here,”

the fog of red recedes from his brain for a second, “mm-hmm,”

“did you know,” he starts, “we have two fucking parts? As in look at that, my bulge, still out, and untouched, without the human word, since I for one am knowledgeable all about humans, of oh, ‘a reach around’ and being considerate in xeno-adventures of *getting it on.*”

“OMG,” he exaggerates making his face contort into suprised, adding “I was gonna get around to it... really, multitasking takes away from the single-tasking, the great sex I bestow on my honeys, one mind-blowing climax at a time, orchestrate Mozart on there sweet asses in single notes,”

“musicians usually know how to play more letters of rythmic noise than one,” Karkat sounds,

“oh come on man, it was _good_ , though I know complaining was your major in troll-military school,” Dave teases him,

“how did you know?” He responds sarcastically, “first in my class, the best, reminding everyone their asses aren't as hot as they think they are, and everything they do has a high chance of idiocy and being-not-as-good-as-they-think, also I hate them,”

“wow, slow down there Shakespeare,”

they smile at each other it’s a weird bullshitting each other so hard, but the alternative to whatever the fuck ripping on each other was was a little daunting.

Karkat finishes his shy smile then turns Dave around, folding arms around his back in swift motion,

“but hey, I actually not-hate-you,”

“you not hate me you say?”

“Ugh. _Like._ ” It comes out as gruff but Dave would bet real live money that he turned him around so he wouldn't see him turn seventy-shades of red from saying ‘like.’

“I think I like you too, man” it was meant to be casual, it was too low to be casual, the air is still.

Karkat suddenly bends Dave over the bed, hot.

He kisses his cheek before backing away and then grabbing his ass aggressively, he messages his backside and then milks Dave’s ‘commander’ for several long moments, Dave wriggles and achieves a few guttural noises.

Karkat then swiftly aligns their hips, obviously eager to reach troll-maturation the old fuck-your-way-to-it sort of way.

His baby-canon explores the other boys downstairs. It probes his taint, tangles in his pubes (that was gonna be a BITCH to get out Dave reminisces), and then finally rubbed up against the rim of his hole.

Dave hisses as the small tip works its way into him expertly, technically there should be prep, but the thing was covered in home-grown lube and thin enough to not tear.

Karkat distracts Dave from his bulge working its way into him by cupping his balls and lightly trailing his claws down his spine, Dave readjusts himself around the intrusion and when Karkat wriggles within him he moans unabashedly.

Karkat only goes halfway in but that seems to be enough for the both of them, they move together in tandem for hot breathless moments, Dave bent over the bed and Karkat rocking into it.

Dave can feel himself so close, when Karkat moves up and down his shaft with his hands.

Then, of course, when the wriggling member within him hones in the G-spot, sweet spot, money-maker, Dave loses it.

It’s kind of embarrassing coming from just one nudge to the P-daddy but he was on the edge for awhile, and the fall was fucking beautiful.

He cums like cold water being poured on his spine and every limb on his body heating up, tingling, he cums like a train pushing through him from fucking ‘pleasure-ville’ and ‘getting it on’ city.

A moment later after the ‘mini-death’ subsides Dave hears Karkat whining as he finishes from his other orifice. Actually meeting the bucket for once in the time Dave had known him.

“good shot there champ, you're lusus-father is prolly super fucking proud,”

“what?” He hadn’t been paying attention, a glaze over his large red eyes now.

“just, come over here,” Karkat snorts in response, Dave continues “I think the dust and me are becoming close now, like real homies, I’ll put up with it and it will just fucking cover me, fuck showers, gonna be a dust connoisseur,”

“the first rule of cuddling is always no siloques Strider,”

“can’t control the mouth pal, you know that, acting on its own train-track, brain working on a different wavelength,”

Karkat crawls into bed with him and curls upon his chest, it’s adorable.

“put the wavelength on vibrate then and I won’t” he yawns, "go anywhere."

Dave is ready to sleep forever and be shit-you-not happy for once in his very ironic life.

He gets exactly six minutes of the highlight of make-outs and also now sex: cuddle jams.

The door opens, a figure walks all the way into the middle of the room, shit.

“I swear to God, if that is you Egbert I will literally interrupt every sex-with-a-female date you ever get, not that that is happening,” he laughs,

“Nope dude, surprise, it’s you,”

Dave sits up, he finds a fine young-piece of fox in the room in a red Knight get-up, as in himself.

“can I choose another time to be up in my own grill?” Dave gestures at Karkat who is sleeping.

“I can take over,” he gives his own self a suggestive grin,

“kind of uncool,” Dave comments, which is odd because he’s usually super-chill with himself.

He shrugs, “this is when you told me to get you. Fulfill some time loops, you know the drill.”

“I can’t believe I’m still doing this complete mess of an enterprise, time travel is bullshit,”

“yah it is, but gotta work for a living, Derse Inc or eat it, or not eat? Whatever something, something, get paid.”

“uh, how about get laid?”

“uh, mission accomplished?” His other self gestures at dozing Karkat.

“fine, alright.” Dave gets up and stumbles over to what is technically his clothes, but also Karkats, his other self stares at him avidly. With a lot of attention.

“dong central is something we’re both in on man,” Dave says as he slips into the loose pants, commando style.

“I want to see it actually change,” Dave raises an eyebrow. He then finds his shirt and prized possession of his sick cape.

He places them on and looks down, they're his red color now, not maroon, and carrying his clockwork insignia, the only sign of Karkat being a very faint blood slash imprinted inside the Time symbol.

“weird magicfuckery,” Dave says under his breath, but he wasn't even one to question it at this point.

“So time loop,”

“very beginning,”

“that sounds exhausting.”

His other self gives him the slightest wink from behind the shades, “yeah, long fucking night, rest, but ya gotta get this shit done, your orders,”

Ugh, “aight, I'm going back.”

Dave takes out his turn tables, stares at the sleeping Karkat with a deep frown. He places his hands on the records and spins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multi-chapter fic (starting off with a BANG, goddamn)  
> Fun AU about Dave, Karkat, decaying cities, and some science fiction world-buildin' stuff surrounding God-tier powers.


	2. The Heir of Garbage

Chapter 2: The Heir of Garbage

The rain came down in a low misty drizzle, not enough to collect rainwater, but enough to annoy the fuck out of him and soak him down to his bones.

Karkat pulls up his hoodie and trots out into the damp environment, there was no choice in the matter, he had to go out now or wait in line for more than an hour.

 

He takes the shortest route possible, ducking through a few alleys he had learned about from a fresh map Terezi sent (“scent”) him from her brief stint in the city. The worst city in the cosmos at least had back routes.

He crosses the Central River and traverses over to a growing line of trolls and people. He celebrates momentarily in his head when he notices the line is only around a dozen people thick.

It wouldn’t have be the most terrible hour of his life to go along with the other terrible hours of all time in his life that he spent in this wrinkle-inducing fuckery.

He stares at the watch on his wrist, okay, forty minutes in the freezing mist, still worth it. He settles in for a long stretch of standing idly.

Karkat is thirty minutes in and tapping his foot along to a beat on his Grubtunes when he spots the worst possible candidate to run into him here. He pops his collar and sinks lower against the wall, the odds were never in his favor he laments, in fact they were regularly screwing him personally over.

The sound of of wheels on cobbled stone whizz closer to him, Karkat refuses to look.

“Thup, motherfucker Katerwallcan,” he is almost incomprehensible.

“You can’t cut in line with me! You have to go to the back.”

“Katerwall _can_ , like garbage, becauth”

“Yes, a janitor, I love being reminded just as much as I like you, which is NOT AT ALL, leave me alone Mituna,”

“okay, but one thing,” he leans in real close to Karkat’s ear as Karkat leans back to avoid the trolls sharp teeth and worse attitude.

“We’re all going to fucking bite it!” He cackles, “every other person, just gonna fucking eat it like their doing a two-thixty on railing and mith the dithmount, up in blood, everywhere.”

“Oh, so you get powers once and you’re gonna fucking doomsday me, you think you’re some shit, like we didn’t already _know_ the city is trying to fucking poison everyone,” he pushes on the older trolls shoulder, wishing the guys matesprit was here to calm his gloomy tits.

“What’th that? What’th that? The dead tell me you’re being a little bitch, and thould let me cut in line with you.”

“Well, tell me what my patience is saying because _it’s_ fucking dead,” Karkat puts his foot down, “oh and I can hear it myself,” he cups his ear, “it says ooh~ you’re powers are as fake as any of your ‘skillz’ and Karkat at least knows how to show up early for water retrieval, and oh! It’s almost my turn! The dead say you should wait at the back like the rest of the forgetful wrigglers,” he mocks him with a grin.

“People are gonna die?” Mituna gives him a pitiful look, one long frown framed by four menacing teeth.

“Oh my God that’s not going to work.”

“Thory.” Again, the guiltiness and look of sad wet dog, the favorite game of two-fold idiots.

“Ug!” This guy was worse than his actual friend Sollux,

“thory,”

“fine, fine, but be discreet about it.” He lets him in, people next to him being too absorbed in their own shit to notice. Karkat attempts to ignore the guy for the rest of the ordeal, the death-foresights he dispenses being frankly unnerving.

“Two jugs, and five capsules,” Karkat finally gets to the front of the line. The human girl examines him over her green glasses.

“Place of business and name with occupation authorization,” she states.

“Prospit-Derse Inc. 14th street, Karkat Vantas...Custodian.”

“HA!”

“ _Shut the fuck up_ ,” he breathes through his teeth at Mituna.

She examines her clipboard momentarily, checking a box off.

“Go to the window to receive your rations,” she replies in business like fashion.

He shuffles over to the window, tapping at it expectantly, and ready to be out of there immediately.

Two jugs are readily dispensed and a packet of capsules, he has no idea where they come from.

Finally, Karkat rushes out of there, slipping away before Mituna can follow him.

He’s practically freezing all of his bulge off when he gets back to his ‘place of business,’ and halls the water jugs inside, arms limp noodle after carrying them for so long.

He wanders down a sparsely decorated hallway to a maintenance closet,

“Rod, stop huffing glue and tell me where you want the water,” he snaps at the door, unsure the guy could entirely hear him.

He would like to say his boss was not a constantly high adhesive-wiffer, but he would like to say a lot things.

A roughly overweight bearded fellow stumbles out of the maintenance closet carrying a paper bag, Karkats nerves tense, but he doesn't act on his reflex to lose it on him,

“What about the trash Krstalkash? Trash is gotta get hashed,” he laughs, and was no one going to say Karkats name right?

“Water,” he shakes the jugs, keeping the interaction as simple as fucking possible,

“I can maybe, I can get someone, and wait, trash, yeah.”

“RRggg”

“what’s that Krstlkash?”

“RIGHT AWAY, I LIVE TO SERVE, THIS WILL BRING ME NOTHING BUT JOY,” he bites it out through his teeth aggressively.

“Cool.”

Karkat stiffly stalks off, he loves all his endless chores and trips to the outdoors, the highlight of his brief mutant life, which could quite possibly not get any better.

He collects the first two lower floors worth of trash, trying to disregard every living creature to the point it is only him and his twirling beautiful pit of thoughts.

He finally makes it outside, trash in hand and walking out to the dumpster a throws way from the building. He wonders how garbage trucks even get this far out to the cities edge. Karkat deposits his stinking burden anyway and then turns his back, shoulders shaking.

He goes back to the wall and slides down it slowly, staring at his own hands wistfully, unwilling to go back in.

He momentarily mourns his own life aspiration. He ended up on this fucked up forest planet and half a city as a custodian, it was truly the antithesis of what dreams were made of. He’s almost transcended to the truest plane of self-pity, the sincerest of all ego buster levels, when he notices a batch of textured red forming on the broken down building next to Derse-Prospit Inc (now combined for the cities convenience!).

Karkat blinks at it. He tilts his head. It twitches.

“Bulge biting blisters,” he curses.

Without a second thought he rushes indoors, scrambling for the nearest emergency button.

“Fuck, which one’s for Rust,” he panics at he stares at the various levers for warning, “fuck it.”

He pulls down three ostentatiously red levers.

Alarms blare through the building immediately, the yowling of panic and flashing lights of ‘we're all screwed’ racquets through the air.

Several people and trolls burst through doors, exiting their own offices on the first floor.

“Rust!” He shouts, ears flattened down on his head,

A few of them curse under their breath, but all of them mobilize immediately, Karkat rushes back out to the scene of the possible disaster.

On one side of him is the sprawling mega-city of what the humans call “New Chicago,” and to the left of him is decay and the ghost of an urban outlet, past that are enormous trees that cover the rest of the world in a green veil.

They were a good block away from the red insidious metal-breaker, it had made it’s way in fast tandem to just feet away from them. And it looked like it was moving in minutes.

Them, the block, and fuckin every part of the city was fucked if it wasn't reversed.

There was only three other operational shops on the street, the mini-bank was evacuating and the post-office workers were already at work on it.

“Take this!” A women with a blonde pony tail and high heels, thrusts a bucket into his hands, he blushes furiously but then snaps back to attention, this wasn’t the time for modesty,

“more of this!” He commands, thrusting the bucket of water onto the ever creeping rust that was destroying the roadway. The water momentarily washes away the mounting red rot, flowing downhill from the buildings.

Karkat breathes in, the Rust resurges, inching towards them,

“another bucket!” A line of people stand in a uniform channel passing water containers down this way and pouring it on the street in a group effort.  

Karkat doesn't know how much time passes, time itself becomes a number of buckets of water and number of moments past before it resurges.

The joints in his arms and knees start to pop, the cold mist soaks him through like a clinging blanket of moisture,

“where’s the next bucket!” He calls to the water chain his office had formed to defend the street, they are the last line of defense, the fire department wouldn't come out this far.

People and trolls had at least poured in from around the other neighborhoods now too, the front line full of mundane workers trying to water the rust down. They were trying to wash it away with already contaminated liquids, already lightly touched by the Rust.

“We have one ofur here!” A syrupy voice calls over to him, he looks over to the post-worker he recognized, he hadn't even noticed she was standing right next to him.

“Thanks Nepeta,” he shoots back bemusedly as she hands him another bucket with water in it,

“no pawblem!” She somehow manages to smile through the prospect of fucking dying, he manages to smile half-heartedly back before someone jostles him to keep going,

It must be an hour and a half later when he stumbles back on his ass,

“oof,” someone hauls him up by the scruff, dragging him backwards from the rust covered street.

The building directly next Prospit-Derse collapses in a breathless screech of dry iron and decayed joints.

“We’re not containing it.” Karkat voices hopelessly, his eyes wide. Even Nepeta, the cheerful girl he had been working besides for an hour looks perplexed, worried. He’s momentarily surprised she stayed besides him for so long, he hadn't even seen her in ages.

“Evacuate!” A voice yells, one Karkat assumes is Rod, the coward, “it'll move by the second any time now.”

“What did he say? It’s moving by the second?!” Someone screeches causing a murmur of fear to ripple through the gathered crowd of rust fighters.

“No!” Karkat tries to assure from the front lines, “it’s by the minute, we have to stay you crust-eating apes,”

It was no use, for once no one could hear him.

“It’s coming for us!”

“This is pointless!” Someone had stirred up the crowd too much, Karkat tries to fight his way deeper into the crowd to a more visible location,

“listen to me! We just have to do this until it begins to slow, it only ever creeps for a few ho- _oof!_ ” He's shoved from behind.

“It’s on me! It’s fucking one me!” Someone exclaims and that’s the last straw, a chilling scream erupts from the location of the victim, and then Karkat is being jostled from all sides, people rushing to escape the deadly location. During the panic he falls to the ground,

“ugh!” He bruises his ass and feels a jolt of pain up his tail bone.

He reluctantly gets up as the crowd thins, dusting himself off and checking for any red spots on his clothes or hands, when he stares up it’s inches from his feet.

“Fuck,” is all he can say in contained horror, it was moving by seconds, “wait.” It sounds like he’s pleading with it, he kind of is.

“Look up there,” that was Nepeta’s amazed voice, still somehow close to him, the noise of the receding crowd stills, Karkat looks around wildly, he doesn’t see anything,

Finally, someone points out to the center of the rust-filled street, he tilts his head, he doesn't get it.

Then, a red-clad figure descends from the sky like a bird of prey dive-bombing the street.

“Wait!” Karkat calls out to the figure, reaching his hand out like he can pluck him out of the sky to stop the impact, even he knows you're not supposed to touch the stuff.

But the floating-asshole stabs his broken half-sword directly into the road,

 _Wumph_ , dust hovers in the air without falling, sound elongates like they are under water, a slow moving breeze erupts from where the figure stabs the ground. An ever so faint red outline of a gear turns around the boy and envelopes the decayed block.

_Oomph_ , the very long second passes, and the street is broken, broken but uncovered from it’s rusted over state, now nothing but an empty metal graveyard is left, Karkat blinks,

“how did he do that?” He expresses in wonder.

“God-tiers.” Nepeta responds breathlessly, “they did it!”

A blue figure descends, also in God-tier garb, to talk to the first one. The red one stands up revealing a freckled human face covered with a pair of dark glasses and pale swooping hair covering his forehead.

 _What a douche_ , is all Karkat can think.

Karkat examines him, transfixed, until an EMT comes bustling over to him after some time.

“Your colleagues inform me you were at the front of the emergency bucket line,”

“yeah, yeah,” Karkat responds, still looking at the super-human whatevers,

“that’s a very dangerous position young man,” the older women EMT informs him, “you’ll have to come with me for a check-up,”

“who are those guys?” Karkat juts out his thumb in their direction.

“Oh,” she sounds musical, “God-tiers son,”

“I know that! But _who_ are they,”

She gives him a cross look, “they are Derse Inc.”

“Right.” Not news, but it did meant they worked in his building, it meant they were citizens of the same corp. Jeez, they were God-tiers though, they weren't going to just run into each other.

“Now, come over here,” the friendly EMT drags him over to their vehicle with Karkat putting up minimal resistance and then she “friendily” examines him.

The probing and prodding leaves him slightly bruised and baffled at the human-troll condition. What did it all mean? Did destiny exist? Did an old women just prod his rumble spheres? Hmm.

He is almost in a complete stupor from the adrenaline rush and then drain when he notices a hooded figure staring directly at him from across the crowd. It points at him with one bony hand. Karkats jaw goes slack.

Fuck. He knew his life was not a romantic comedy, but it sure as hell had the chance of being a horror movie. He averts his eyes, hoping it would just go away.

Karkat precedes to make his way to one of the emergency vehicles where he sits in the back of the wheeled transportation and sips some sort of hot liquid with a blanket over his shoulders. It still was fucking soggy and cold out okay. He watches a couple argue. He hoped the buffer zone of their ear wrenching exchange would deter any questionable hauntings. But, it was not.

“Psst, hey kid, you, troll, McStubby shout, motherfucker, yo,” someone was definitely talking at him.

Karkat would not give who ever this punk was the satisfaction though so he stares stubbornly ahead, ignoring him. “KK, dude, sempai, Karkat,” he takes a breath,

“Yo! Karkat.”

“What is it?” He relinquishes, tilting his body back to look to the side of the “car” to peer at the person, _him_. The hooded figure habitats a broken-down alleway to his left. A boy in black, his feet not touching the ground as he floats off it by a good inch, which is exactly how far Karkats eyebrows rise.

“HahaHA, the Angel of Death has come for me, sweet relief, deity of a shit cape and hood, how could I ever doubt my reaper would be fucking annoying as hell. I guess it’s my serving of *oh snap* and *got served* for being almost useful on this the day I fucked with the Rust.”

“Omfg, shut up.”

“Nice to fuck you too.”

“Wow, spoilers Karkat.”

“And _you_ shut up...who are you?” He eyes the floating boy, peering under his hood momentarily to spy a pair of dark glasses. They look familiar.

“Did you see that biznasy master of getting shit done and cutting down the red-devil-dust?”

“~No~I was under a rock counting my flower crowns and how many fucks I give,”

The boy is not amused, his mouth a straight line.

“It’s zero.” Karkat finishes.

He sighs, “dude, I did not come back to the past to do this with you,”

“of course I saw the Knight of stabbing the ground, I’m not dense, it’s you, *that guy,* saved us all, hurrah, hurrah, we didn’t think he could, but he did,” Karkat rubs his hands together and fidgets, this was an odd exchange, and he was half worried it was hallucinated.

“Look, listen up,” Karkat perks up as the boy takes on a commanding tone, “cause I’m only going to lay it down for you once. Okay that’s a lie because you’re stubborn lil’shit, and this was gonna be a hella tedious exchange.”

“Do you have a point or are you really here to take me to the afterlife by way of exasperation?”

“You need to go talk to me. Not like this me, but the one over there, the sweet dude in the red pajamas.”

“That’s great, you’re pajamas are a fucking delight, this makes lot’s of sense, and I enjoy taking instructions from floating strangers.”

“Man, stubborn lil bitch like I said, but this is time travel shenanigans, so like you are always going to do it. So you'll either end up talking to me, or oh! Talking to me. Fuck I hate phrasing this shit and saying those actual words out of my own mouth.”

Karkat stares, perplexed, “I ate the rust. Or I’m dead and this is purgatory,”

“I know you know what a God-tier is, don’t pretend ‘time-travel’ isn’t a thing you believe.”

“I’m going to take a wild guess here then and assume that for reasons you probably can’t tell me, for problems nobody knows about, for timeline shit that hasn’t happened yet, I have to talk to your flagrant red-ass self, for the good of the universe,”

“Sure why not, yes.”

“Bullshiiit,”

“fine, you are actually really correct, we’re Marty McFlying this bitch, ensuring our own birth, inventing rock and roll, incest,”

“The last part is nothing new.”

He laughs sardonically, “trolls are the fucking something else,”

“okay, so what about this mysterious favor for you,”

“it’s more like a favor for future you.”

“That sounds like something I should run away from really fast,”

“Oh my god, just go talk to me.”

“No.”

“Yes,”

“no,”

“I swear I will drag you over there, no joke, this hand has beat back so much murderous beasts of hell-no, you have no idea, you would be like nothing, nothing, dude,”

Dave _was_ strong, and _was_ talking to him, Karkat’s interest was peaked, his apprehension gave way to curiosity,

“do have something you want me to say?”

“No, just, whatever,”

Karkat doesn't like the sound of that, or any of it, but he nods very sightly.

“Ima leave now, since I did the thing that I did before to ensure everything else. You’re welcome.”  

“Don’t let me flipping you off be mistaken for anything other than utmost gratitude.”

“Lmao.”

“Ugh,” Karkat looks through the crowd, spying said boy in the middle of a group “cooly” talking to the party pressing closer to him. The blue girl wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Go, dude. Man. McStubs.”

“I thought you were leaving.”

The boy in black gestures for him to get on with it, probably not really leaving till he saw Karkat fulfill said *destiny.*

Karkat rolls his eyes and then forces his way through the sweaty hordes of flesh till he stands feet from the time-traveler, disgruntled.

He glances back to the alley hoping other-same-kid would hand gesture what he wants him to say. The guy in black is gone.

Karkat wishes he was in bed, at home, and only had one weird event today. But no. Fighting the rust, and now this human harassing him, a twofer.

“HELLO.” Karkat yells abrasively, not one to stall.

The time God-tier looks around slowly, hands in his pocket,

“s’up” he finally replies tranquility, eyeing Karkat up and down. Karkat knows he can't look great, still wet from the buckets and carry a heavy ridiculous blanket over his shoulders.

“NAME?” He should know his name.

“Dave Strider, he saved the whole neighborhood,” a man says next to him in a tone of irritation at this troll who's bothering 'Dave.'

“Okay, that’s great, he’s *the man,* we love him, full marks... That’s enough.” He turns his back to be done with it,

“did you want something,” this Dave was less aggressive than the first one and is giving him a head tilt as he inquires at Karkat loudly,

“no, fuck no, have a nice day,” he felt almost bad, but he also wanted to get back home before dark, hopefully with more to most of his dignity intact.

The crowd around him glowers at him and his terse words, whatever.

“Well fuck man, nice to meet you too”

“yes, beautiful, we have a lot in common, your other self says hi,” Karkat did his duty. All of time saved, hurray.

He forces his way back through the onlookers, his morning shift was going to be a bitch if he got sick from staying out in the damp air all afternoon.

“Wait up, you have a thing on your wrist. Like something actually on it,”

Karkat hears him but doesn't turn around, already too far gone. He leaves Dave to his well-wishers and the fuck-all afternoon behind him.


	3. The Lord of Day Jobs

 

Dave did not know what his affinity for shitty coffee was. Something to do with not being hugged as a child? All his dong related death dreams growing up? An Oedipus complex and the shitty coffee was his non-existent mama?

Either way Dave had already decided to be late for work to get some trashy bean water. He waits in line at Capri’s Coffeehouse, tapping his hand along to song on his headphones. He assumed they had non-shitty coffee since there was a line, but he had the same thing every morning so it’s not like he was going to find out.

He wasn’t stoked on going to work anyway, he’d wait.

“Large coffee, one cream,” he tells the barista when he reaches the front of the line, she gives him a shy smile, the one she'd been developing for him. Cool.

“Already made.” She informs him as she hands the large dark drink, he takes it with a quick wink, she ducks her face down and takes his money bashfully. Still got it.

Dave floats the rest of the way to his office building at the edge of the city, people wave at him excitedly as he goes by, he gives them little salutes while sipping his drink.

He contemplates just flying up to his floor but decides against it, taking the old fashion elevator transport instead, _vintage_.

He’s like twenty minutes 40 seconds late when he lazily drifts onto the God-tier floor. He makes his way to his desk and manages to get his ass in a chair before someone approaches him,

“I assume you’re arrival time is a reflection of the pressing matters that occupied all of your attention, such as battle plans, or styling that one swish in your hair,” Rose gives him a wry smile as she advances in on him with a clipboard in hand.

“That’s exactly how I would put it, yes,” Dave leans back in his chair, hands on his head.

“Well, Roxy is already in, so you may or may not be the weakest link hereon in,”

“dude, man, are you saying I’m being voted off the island? Is this what that feels like,”

“I have distributed roses to all our other colleagues, you may pack your things,”

“we’re over? No, I thought we really had something special together: dying, sacrificial slabs, you being a Seer of Management n’ paperwork hell over me,”

They pause their version of sarcasm chicken reality TV edition when Roxy appears with an oblong box in her arms,

“Rosie are you gettin on my partnrs case?”

“I would never,” Rose responds with a slight gasp as she covers her mouth. Dave actually rolls his eyes.

“Are those donuts Rox?” Daves eyes light up as he is drawn to the box of sugar circles,

“you bet your ass they are, best team mom, amiright?” She laughs,

“fucking greatest.” Dave sticks one in his mouth, ready to maybe have a low-key day of office hijinks if at all possible.

“wait, these aren’t appearified from the abyss of shit-you-not nothingness?” Dave asks as he holds the sticky treat farther from his face, he was not about eating food from the great unknown.

“Nah, store grown, never saw the non-light of nonexistence...tho I don’t see the issue with that, it’s like all the same thing ‘cept one's all from me and mah skillz,” Dave shudders in response,

“no way, it’s like insane abyss-filled ‘magyks,’ which don’t even exist,” they might have gotten back into the Great Void-Food Debate if Rose hadn’t suddenly started blinking rapidly, she tilts her head to the side.

Dave juts his jaw out and looks up at the ceiling.

Rose proceeds to pull out a ridiculous white ball from her sylladex and examine it, and Roxy politely places the box down and waits, they know what’s coming.

“38th Street and Cache,”

“great.” Dave says,

“can do Rosie,”

“watch out for this ones mouth, you should know him, and the blue one, it looks like a,” she pauses to shake the white mystic ball thing and stares into it, “Prince of Breath.”

“what’s that one do?”

Rose actually shrugs,

“really?”

“I could not be entirely sure, however, you could stop by and ask our resident classpect enthusiast, she would love to provide said lengthy discussion on the subject I’m certain, I can call her now,” it sounds like a threat.

Dave and Roxy exchange a look.

“that’s okay!” Roxy expresses, “gotta get our move on right? Sure we can figure it out, like with our combined mojo and shit, team synergy, hell yeah,”

Dave high fives her in solidarity and gets up to fuck right off so Rose doesn’t make good on her promise and prep them with Serkracken.

Roxy and Dave head out, taking the window this time and flying off like majestic literal save-the-fucking-day icons. Someone yells up at them, Dave waves downward absently.

It takes twenty minutes to get there.

Roxy bites her lip and then glances over at Dave, she looks back to in front of her, she glances back at him, he can feel it coming,

“sooo, how’s the love life?” She asks as casually as she can.

“Nosy.” It was non-existent.

She giggles, “y’all are a strapping young Strider, I’m just checking in on you, making the friendly friendship gesture, have the look to my partners heart-box t’ defend that shit from vagabonds and near-do-wells, can’t have my friends dating near-do-wells dude.”

“Never.” He assures sarcastically, “plus you need dirt on people’s personal junk.”

“total dirt. But! In a mad benign way, so tempered shit holds hands with you as you cross the street, saves you an extra seat on the bus, remembers birthdays, a real well-behaved romantic inquiry is what I'm saying,”

“gossip,”

“an interest.”

“Aight, it’s pretty bleak is all, The sun is covered in Strider land, folks deprived of my sick raps dedicated to their junk and hella dating prowess. It’s like a desert in July and spayed cats pajama pants Rox: barren…” he needs to change the subject to something less melodramatic, “speaking of which, what’s your social findings coming to? Not like with John because I don’t wanna know like at all, but with that cat-girl...troll.”

“ah, c’mon that’s no fun, that’s like work,”

“I thought you two were bros,” he tilts his head,

“I mean yeah, she is pretty fun if you want to know, strange like lived in a shitty cave growing up strange, but whatevs she’s doing well since the our yesteryear fuck-up right now. _Also_ , me n’ John only hooked up once! Which was once not enough for freakin sure, but he’s off in space being a space stud, doin stuff that isn’t saving a city and then saving it again. And again.” Even Roxy sounded exasperated with the loop of fighting the Rust back over and over, like the maid, yet someone had to do it.

“what do you think we're in for this time for city-saving wise?” Dave asks bringing them back around to the task at hand.

“maaan, work stuff for real?

He nods loosely,

“Ima bet it’s some sort of robbery.”

“And done by someone we know,” Dave ponders, “and unless it’s the Rust come into human fucking form that’s like one of two people...Can’t believe we’re always policing this place anyway,” he laments,“ can’t get their own asses in gear to stop ‘crime city,’ like a straight-up dystopian novel, get my hair in a braid, a love triangle and a some girl-angst, overthrow the government myself,”

“all we see is the bad stuff is all,” Roxy says, responding to his rant as they make it to 34th street, “New Chicago isn’t bad yah, super important, and like pays well, so well, but with big cities comes great responsibilities and shit-fucked up,”

“That’s not how it goes Rox,”

“awe, shut it Time Dweeb, it could,”

They both pause their exchange as the approach the intersection of Cache and 38th, growing silent and landing softly on the pavement, it’s very quiet.

They're near the heart of the city, as indicated by the faded blue sidewalk with yellow trim, IKEA colors, the planet's second to first owners depending on who you asked.

Dave and Roxy give eachother a passing look, conveying the unease of the situation. They approach the corner cautiously, the air is tense, yet far too placid.

“Do you think-”

_Boof_

The wall explodes on the brown trimmed building on the corner, both Dave and Roxy skid backwards on their heals, Dave screws his eyes shut to the blast.

“why do they do this?” He grumbles.

A hole in the wall reveals an average-height young man in a long coat and black chin length hair.

“hey Ali,” Roxy waves at the dude, “thought it’d be you, and this is super uncool BT-dubs and now were gonna have to kick yur ass,” Roxy spreads her stance into a fighting one.

“is this an antique shop?” Dave voices, “an antique shop. Why in the hell...you're such a weird dude,”

C’ali’born, called Ali to annoy the fuck out of him, grimaces at them.

“Well this is an a totally unexpected turn of events to see you, but not fuck AT ALL,” the irritated youth squawks at them with a sack in his hand like some sort of cliche burglar. Several hostages are on their knees behind him with their hands up, Dave makes a mental note to watch out for them.

“isalright, we already knew you were not that bright, robbing a place in broad daylight just completes the stupidity quota.”

“Fuck you! And outa my way, not that I’m not in the mood to not beat the God-tier out of you, but I’m leaving”

“way to many ‘not’s’ guy,” Roxy responds,

Al opens his mouth to reveal a dark tongue stud, he gives them a hard look and then flicks it, a bright rainbow beam shoots out of the stud like a furious multicolored puke canon aimed at Roxy of course. She dodges to the side like an agile cat, rowling into a crouch.

Dave abstracts his shitty broken sword from his sylladex and another version of him materializes from Strider Timeloop Storage, he gives him a slight nod.

They circle around the angry man-boy, Dave dodges several of the shots he throws at him, slowing them enough time-wise to have little impact on the city behind him.

Dave makes his way inch by inch towards the enemy, going in for a decisive strike. Al was dangerous but sluggish and oh so punchable once you got in close enough.

Dave ducks under the last beam and then pops up in pummeling distance, the guy manages to jump back from Dave's first parry and then lift his bag up and swing it into Dave’s head. It was heavier than it looked and it knocks Dave down to his knees. Dave stabs forward once more, this time at least catching the dark coat, slashing a deep gash in it.

" _how dare you_."

Dave rolls his eyes, "oh no, how could I-" before Dave can finish Al smashes his chest, he falls backward.

He cackles, “someone is the Alpha male,” he punches Dave in the face, it kind of hurts, “it’s me.” He punches Dave in the face again and then swings the bag at his head, a burst of pain erupts in his cheek blooming towards his whole head. Dave falls backwards, goddamn.

Before anything else Roxy throws a pumpkin directly into Al’s head, he screams as the heavy fruit throws him off his feet, splaying him on the store carpet covered in pumpkin gunk.

“booyeah! Take that pumpkin to the face, no touching my peeps,” Roxy wags her finger at him.

Al tries to get up but Dave’s other self appears and kicks him across the abdomen. _Crick_. Dave OG winces at the noise it makes, other Dave looks satisfied and kicks him again.

Al moans and tries to crawl forward on his knees,

“no need to get up, you are surrounded,” Roxy informs him, she’d been busy and ended up putting up a fence and several sharp objects/traps around the premise, trying to keep Al in and pedestrians out. The curious bastards after all were eagerly standing on the sidelines with camera’s pointed and cheering for victory, ugh, fuck his life this was not a show for tourists.

Dave-classic gets up and takes a pair of cuffs out of his sylladex, getting this over with would feel good. He steps on the guys leg harshly to indicate he shouldn't stand up.

Al suddenly jolts upward to a sitting position and gives him a menacing snarl, a grin even.

Dave’s eyebrows spike upward and then his head starts to grow light, the air is very thin, too thin.

He is gasping, air being wrenched from his lungs, FUCK, this shit was flagrant rooky material. The blue one has here. They had forgotten.

Dave is gasping, then choking, no air being able to make it’s way into his lungs, eyes popping and his chest tightening like giant hands squeezing his bust.

“Roxy.” He calls weakly, he doesn’t hear what she says, for all he knows she’s in range of the air-destroyer as well.

Everything is going blurry.

Dark spots form in his vision as he stares up at the sky, reduced to his knees and shaking all over, his muscles are on fire. He’s-

This is it, this is how he goes, damn, on his knees in the middle of the street by a huuuge dick man-child, what more could he want.

A pained cry by a high pitched voice erupts a second later, a crashing noise follows.

“Stay down,” it’s his voice.

Dave falls to his hands and starts gasping for real life air and it’s one of those radically satisfying moments of his life. Like goddamn golden ticket, 5/5 would breath again.

His breathing is erratic and gasping, embarrassing to hell and back again, but hey that's suffocation for you.

He stares from his vantage point collapsed on the ground to his right, he spots Roxy clutching her chest and huffing as well but wobbling to her feet nonetheless. That chick.

He glances over to where she’s headed. Ah, the blue-dude had been pushed into one of her traps, he struggles in a wooden crisscross of beams trapping himself and his hands to his side. It was a young dude with a shock of red hair and an angry scar across his mouth. A villain Dave guesses.

Dave follows Roxy’s lead at his own pace, rocking to a sitting position shortly. He looks around, there are now three of himself. One of his future selves is also intaking air haphazardly, having been trapped in the air vortex too, the other floats above them.

Dave looks around for Al, “did you get trench-coat Douche-ikstan??” He calls up to his floating player three. Dave numero tres shakes his head,

“we freakin let the bad guy get away, Jesus,” Dave says to himself.

“we didn’t catch him the first time round, so I didn’t go after him this one either,”

“damn,” Dave 2 and 1 say in unison. “Fuck laws of continuity,” other Dave finishes,

“We should get outta here,” Roxy approaches the Dave triquet, holding a limp prisoner to her side, he’s covered in pumpkin juice so it looked like she knocked him out. She observes the crowd nervously, many still amorous towards them, others not.

“Yeah…” the beta-Dave's take out their individual turntables and peace out. Dave gets up and feels just like pure crap all over.

“this sucked,” he articulates, they float up, carrying the prisoner between them, Dave’s head hurts.

“letsjus get back,” They make their way home in weary silence, trying to forget the literal experience of suffocating to maybe-death.

They land in front of the fifteen story building, Dave stares off at the broken street to his right remembering just yesterday the close call with the devil rot creeping right next to them. Huh.

Now he was fucking being a loser again, it was like a rollercoaster of victory and then spooky failure. Ooh~ where did it come from? His own ineptitude? Propably.

They make their way into the lobby of Derse-Prospit Inc. heading towards the front desk to check in with the secretary.

“We have a captive.”

“A prisoner.” Roxy tries to make it sound better.

“A criminal?”

“A real messed up dude.”

“A convict! Duh, that’s the word,” Roxy proclaims, snapping her finger in an ‘aha’ manner.

“Nice.”

“Right?”

“Alright you two what’s his name? I’ll give him a check in number.” The secretary interjects,

Roxy and Dave make eye contact,

“we dunno,”

“he’s just some guy. A Prince of Choking us all out like a Motherfuck.”

“Recording that description right now,” she responds unamused.

Dave huffs, even the secretary gets sassy at him, no respect.

Someone calls his name,

“there he is! I told you.” The voice growls at the secretary.

“Dave.”

Dave turns, a he finds a short troll with a broom in hand, large dark bags under his eyes and a face on the verge of becoming irritation itself. Okay?

“Oh.” Dave realizes, “you’re that troll from last tomorrow,” Dave sometimes gets his time mixed up, “yesterday.”

“YES! You saw me.” He is very loud. He places his broom down with slight embarrassment on his cheeks and scurries over to them.

“we’re sort of busy.”

“Just one second.” He is staring at the secretary motionlessly, “she didn’t believe me.”

“Mr. Vantas, you seem to be right, you appear to know Dave Strider.” She peers at him over the desk, “congratulations.”

Damn sassy.

“Ugh, yes, and he, you, saw me, and saw something on my wrist.”

Dave's eyebrows shoot up, “yes, totally, roll up your sleeves, I can’t believe you’re not dead.”

“what?” Karkat hesitates at his dark blue sleeve.

“The Rust, on you?” Dave was certain the dude had caught a case of the red-decay on his persons, a one way recipe for making people into body-bags.

“no!” He pulls at his hair, and then deflates, he rolls up his sleeve and nothing’s there.

“the sign,” he says in a reserved tone, “the mark, the whatever fuck, destiny compatibility,”

“this...isn’t a fantasy novel?” Dave _tries_ to help,

“he’s trying to say little guy that that’s just a rumor,” Roxy adds sympathetically, “God-tier indicators are less of a thing and more of a not-thing.”

He looks dejected, but Dave guesses he would be too if he had just been told he didn’t have said potential to level up in real life...especially if you're in a janitor outfit. On the other hand…

“That’s what I told him,” the secretary contributes, “no one can know who will ascend or who will not, one of the many mysteries the companies keep secret,”

“or just don’t know,” the void player inputs knowingly.

“I was assigned as a Knight of Blood.”

“From one of those personality tests online?”

“No.”

The guy they are holding between them starts to stir moaning into the air.

“aight, we have to go...but I’ll come back for you,” because he might as well.

Roxy turns back to look over her shoulder, giving him a compassionate mouth frown.

“That’s a bummer,”

“I think you mean a downer,” Dave says, “I don’t know why he’d want to do this tbh.”

“yah,”

They maneuver their way to the elevator and return to the God-tier level, they were going to interrogate him.

They set him down on a chair in a small side room, Dave goes to fetch Rose. She was a Seer of Light so she had special way of getting information out of people, he suspected it was her favorite part of the job.

“You’ve got someone?” Rose looks up from desk, paperwork and coffee cups surrounding her. He did not envy her classpect ‘destiny’ of coordinating missions and shit.

“you know it.” She probably already did.

“take me to him,” he gestures for her to follow and retreat into the back room.

“can he vaporite like John can? Exit the room I mean.”  She asks briskly.

“Doesn’t look like, but he can vape the fuck out of air out of someone's lungs.”

“Destroyer of air, yes, that makes sense.”

“makes sense? Like, literally asked for a heads up for this one,”

she gives him a sidelong look, “it hadn’t occurred to me before, nevertheless one of us did end up going to consult Serkrac-Aranea on the issue. She had a few insights.”

“A few,”

“It was a full morning.” Rose relents, Dave snickers. They reach the door to the room and loiter in front of it.

“I’m sure however, that we can handle one restrained young man, unless you want a ‘heads up’ on what could possibly happen this time around,” her eyes shimmer with a golden power, threatening to delve into the possible paths.

“Nope, girl, I’m good. Let’s do this.”

Rose grabs the handle and enters the room, Dave treks in after.

The boy is fully awake by then, his eyes dart around and his upper lip trembles. Alright then.

Roxy and Dave kind of just shuffle off to the side of the room.

“So,” Rose says, and then she stares the boy in the eyes, he stares back, he fidgets and twitches in several places, a nervous wreck frankly.

“what’s your name?” She starts.

“ _eep_.” His voice was helium fueled and all over the place, the kind Dave would want to shake until the loose part in his vocal cords fell into place and dropped an octave. Dave didn’t do that.

“name.”

“H-he’ll come back man.” the boy gets out, still squirming in his seat.

Rose stares in the eyes once more silently, tensions build, he stares back, her look is hard and unforgiving, he sweats, Dave is not jealous of him rn.

“Roxy,” Rose suddenly turns away from him, he deflates like a relieved balloon, “can I have a word with you in the hallway.”

“Shit. Sure Rose,” Roxy is surprised as the rest of them and follows her out.

The door closes after them.

“I CAN GIVE YOU A HANDJOB.” The boy reaches up for Dave’s ‘handjob’ parts.

“Jesus fucking christ,” this kid had no chill, “I’m not that kind of cop...I’m not even a cop.”

“A really good one,” he simpers, “for untying me,” Dave doubts him.

“I swear to Valhalla and then possibly Buddha that is not gonna happen and also all sorts of messed up.” He pauses, the boy looked scared, Dave was not very good at this.

“look, we can help you.”

“he’ll come back.” It’s a whisper.

“pfft, I pinky promise I can personally handle ‘Al myself, serve his ass on a plate to you, shaken not stirred, and you’ll like be fine.”

The kid looks solemn, “handjob?”

Dave crosses his arms and looks at the ceiling tersely. “This is so what I wanted to occur today, teen offering some piss poor pants-shimmy after disappointing my metaphorical ghost-bro in battle, perfect.”

"wha-"

Dave and the boy then jump as Rose and Roxy re-entered the room, “it's decided, we can help you disappear if that is what you're worried about.” Rose says, Roxy winks at him.

Now, a look of hope wells in the poor fella's eyes.

“in exchange for prudent information.” Rose ends. He de-hopes himself pretty quick, slouching sullenly.

“I don’t remember most of it,”

“what did happen?” Dave interjects,

“I died...falling. I woke up God-tier and he told me what to do. My powers were there.”

“he may be manufacturing God-tiers.” Rose states lowly, she looks unnerved, the rest of them shift uncomfortably, this was forewarning. It wasn’t Caliborn-like, it was something else, another issue on the mounting list of problems for the city.

“welp, that sounds illegal,” Roxy says.

“I died,” the boy repeats, “and then I resurrected.”

“That’s how it works.”

“Then, then, what now?” He looks to all of them frantically,

“How do you want to disappear,” Roxy gives a smirk.

“what?”

“Derse it is! Tho you'd have to go there anyway, lol.”

Roxy talks to the young man, Rose and Dave float off and whisper in harsh tones.

“I don’t like this.”

“I don’t think anyone would. Numerous God-Tiers of any sorts is not something we have forces to counter, even ones coming from a fool.”

“It’s just weird.”

“Well in this line of business…”

“Yeah, can’t come back from the dead without a catch it seems.”

“The world these days. No decency.” She shakes her head, then smiles ironically at him. “We should however keep him on standby, I’ll question him again once he’s calmed down.”

“Dude doesn’t seem like the type to _get_ calm.”

“I can help with that.”

“Terrifying.”

Dave chats with Rose for the afternoon on what to do next. Before evening he goes to the cities edge with Roxy and makes the Rust recede for the day, either disappearing it or turning back the clock on it respectively. And he'll admit it felt like he was on Groundhogs day with the whole shtick. 

He ends the day at his little apartment contemplating on if he could fit his whole hand into his mouth or not, could he? Would it be possible? Would it be the sickest party trick ever or what? He was going places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun plot unrelated fact: this is set in modern day (2000s) but in an alt!universe where humans industrialized sooner, had oil wars and then turned to charcoal (trees) as a fuel source as the next big thing. It's an interesting idea that is based on this rad article:  
> http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/could-we-reboot-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels/  
> sci-fi! *jazz hands*
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, leaving kudos and so on!


	4. A Ghost of Hope

Karkat yawned, it was seven in the morning. He was sweeping the main lobby of Derse-Prospit Inc. The only sound was the tip-tapping of the secretary’s long nails on her keyboard.

What a morning.

Karkat was almost finished when the first trickle of employees for the upper levels trouped in, he looked up, examining them carefully.

He had gone to great lengths, as in forced himself to bribe Rob with a smile and positive attitude, to secure this particular job as to hopefully catch a certain somebody.

ie: PAST KARKAT WAS A FUCKING IDIOT. Karkat had been so mad at himself it was amazing there wasn't a pending formal separation from each other.

He had the chance to get in with the upper ranks of society, you know, maybe have the chance to improve his life status for once since he was 8 sweeps.

He had Dave Strider, a hero of time, right there in front of him and he didn’t even try to take advantage of it. The life of a realist sceptic was a hard one. But Karkat could be more. He believed in destiny, he had to, and his one true fate was to be a fucking big-shot one day, that was for sure, at least not picking up people’s perpetual messes.

That was the new dream at least.

Karkat was resweeping the corner of the room when he spots, no not Dave, but,

“Nepeta.” He says out loud. What?

He jogs across the room up to the girl in street clothes and her usual blue hat, she was getting into the elevator.

“Nepeta!” He calls again, she looks around, and then her eyes light up when they land on him,

“Karkitty!” Oh fuck, Karkat somehow doesn’t physically retch at that nickname. “The mighty huntress exclaims in delight at meeting her furreind from deliveries at the workplace!”

“What are you doing here?” He asks, eyes darting around her to see if she was delivering packages this time.

She laughs, “I work here silly, I mean sort of.” She cocks her head and stares upward contemplatively.

“Sort of?”

“I’m part UPS still too! But now um, it’s complicated, they want me close by,” she explains.

“How? Why?” Karkat had so many questions.

“Me and Roxy! Didn’t you hear ‘bout the incident on the news? I-I, it wasn't good.”

“Um, No?”

“will you let the door close already!” An annoyed patron of the building erupts from the back of the elevator.

“Oh!” she exclaims, she goes to exit the elevator to chat with him but then hesitates, looks concerned and opens her mouth sullenly. She lets the door go,

“I, well, I’ll come back to say hi Karkitty! I’ll just, well, go up right now. See you soon!” she finishes as the metal entrance closes between them.

Karkat doesn’t know what to think. That wasn’t an answer at all.

But if Nepeta could get up there then…

“Hello, yes, you there,” he turns to the secretaries desk, she doesn’t look up, Karkat keeps going,  “I would like to visit with one of your pajama charlatans. Dave Strider specifically.”

Karkat was going to take this chance, he was going to be on a better track. Or he would once he did this backtracking like a brain-dead wriggler soaked in load-gaper juices crawling back on his knees to Dave Strider.

The secretary doesn’t respond for one long minute then _finally_  looks up.

She pushes her bangs aside mechanically and looks him up and down,

“what would be the nature of your visit?”

Karkat blinks, he wasn’t prepared for that question.

“Business?”  

“What kind of business.” Stupid lower class prejudice he wouldn't get this shit in a suit.

“My, uh, own.”

“That’s not...sufficient.” She looks back down to her notes in a bored manner.

“Look lady, I’m not here to pull the proverbial hood over anyones eyes, I just want to get up there and well, be up there. I have *sufficient* reason to believe I will become one of them.” Why else would Dave contact him?

“A God-tier?” Now she sounds intrigued, eyebrows arching.

“yeah. I have…” He hesitates, “the mark, the indicator, a thing on my wrist. Plus, more importantly, some inside information from one of your jackasses in pajamas that I’ll be involved with them. I swear!” Karkat cringes at himself, he sounds somewhat pathetic.

“That sounds...far-fetched.” She replies shortly.

“It’s true~.” Dear fuck, is he pleading?

“There is no way to tell who will become a hero of legend or who will not, and this planet has no sacrificial slabs to ascend with regardless, furthermore, I can’t just let anyone go up there on a basis of ‘I completely know some individual up there and need them for mysterious provisions.'”

“Indicators do exist,” he pouts, “dream selves are locatable.”

“Have you woken up then?”

“Well, no. But that’s not the point. Plus it’s treated like a huge fucking secret.”

“Precisely. It’s the business of people who are not pedestrians. Like yourself.”

A long silence spans between them. She's so condescending Karkat almost ascends to a silent fuck-you to the moon-tier.

“Don’t you have any cleaning duties to attend to?” Her voice is softer and less sharp, almost pitying. Karkat gets pissed.

“ _No._ ”

“Frankly it just sounds like you're chasing false rainbows.”

“Will you give me a break.” He huffs in a tired voice, “and just, _c’mon_ ,” he reaches over her desk aptly and picks up the the directory and then the phone itself, “It’s important.”

“Stop that!”

He scans the sheet he picked up and only finds a lot of shorthand for which numbers go to which departments.

She grabs for the sheet, he holds her off with the hand with the phone in it, she maneuvers past it and they wrestle for the materials.

“Stay back!”

“Do you even know Dave Strider? It doesn’t sound like it.”

“a;lfkja, this is such a shitty day,” he tersely gets out, “and _yes_ ,”

“I’m sure,”  

They are scrambling now in fact on top of the desk in a push-pull tuga-war. She wins when she digs her sharp nails into his hand and wrenches the phone away.

She dials a number on the phone in a flurry, “Rod? Can you come down here and discipline one of your custodians under your management?”

Rod says something back,

“no, discipline,” pause, “no I said disci _pline_ ,”

Karkat is suddenly pleased his boss is an industrial glue huffing expert and probably won't get on his ass, unlike his other boss who demoted him to this position to begin with.

**  
******

“Alright, alright, I’ll back off,” Karkat walks away, hands held up, he scurries over to a wall and departs to one of his other cleaning jobs.

It was bathroom day.

Suddenly Karkat was once more willing to try to infiltrate God-tier ranks!

Wow, motivation was a hell of a thing, Karkat personally proving that the road to determination could very much include community restrooms on the path of self-discovery, who knew.

****

He went back to the lobby. He hung in the background, waiting, prowling out of site, until said Dave Strider appeared by around 10:30. Karkat was up for giving it another go,

“Dave!”

He turns to the secretary, growling,

“There he is, I told you....” Karkat talks to Dave and his blue partner with some sort of unconscious man between them.

It was very disappointing exchange to say the least.

“...I’ll come back for you.” That was the only piece of comfort from the ordeal, dear fuck-him-in-the front lobe that was sad.

****

However, Karkat concluded to keep at it, giving up was for past-Karkat and probably future Karkat too, Lord-tier he hated that guy, but current Karkat, he would follow through.

 

First he went for the most obvious route he should of attempted before. He asked nicely.

After all, Karkat was assigned the first four floors to clean, he never bothered to find out what was above them.

****

“Pst, Karen. Karen.” On the the fifth day of redemption attempt version number three Karkat goes up to one of his fellow custodians.

****  
****

“Uh, yes hello...you.” Karkat mainly kept to himself, especially with his coworkers, but Karen was friendly and approachable in tolerable people he met way.

****

“Do you know the God-tier floor on this building, or if there’s a passcode to get in?” He was ready. There was a pause as she contemplates the sudden question.

“Uh, okay, weeeell, I would say maybe the 11th floor.” She informs him good-naturedly, “why?”

“just wondering! In a very mild way, a curiosity,” he gestures erratically, fuck, he was embarrassed for his current self now.

“Huh, haha, well I don’t think there is a password, but I would watch out! I heard that the secretary has it out for you,”

“what?” His eyes get wide.

“Yeah, she told some of the security guards to be on the lookout for your comings and goings, what a trip, haha,”

“....”

“Not very good at pleasing bosses I hear, you, haha,” He changes his mind about Karen, placing her in the large box of ‘people he would rather never interact with on penance of bulge-numbing burns to the nook.’

Karkat grumbles something back,

she laughs again, “it happens!”

He strolls away mechanically a moment later, somehow bottling up the urge to tell her where she can stuff her obnoxious gaping mouth (somewhere near a load gaper and the mouth of a hungry bark-beast). He dodges Rod in the hall as well, no new asinine chores for him, it was time for plan ‘infiltration, self-made troll edition.’

****

Karkat had to be sneaky. He’d really stepped in it by pissing off the secretary and now he would have to be sneaky he decided, by that he means he just sort of got on the elevator on floor three and hit the 11th floor button.

_Ding, ding_

There he goes.

He watches the rising light as it dings it’s way up the levels, his ears flick up and down in time with the noise nervously.

The door opens to a grey carpeted cubicled office space, large and bundled off in boxes.

It occurs to Karkat momentarily, and then heavily, that he has no fucking idea where he’s going. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, eyes flitting around carefully.

He inches into the room, sliding along the wall, staring adamantly at the ground and not at the people, he doesn't want to talk to any of these gawkers, just the Dave guy.

****

He delves into the rat maze of shuffling papers and suits. This is obviously where God’s shit work was done. “Behind the God-tier” would be a hit TV show on this anane planet if wasn't so goddamn fucking depressing.

****

He shifts behind a Page of Light talking to another worker, eyes squinted at the trolls tiny shorts. It was strange, to be around ‘heroes.’ Easier than he thought as well, thank the fucking powers that be for the inconspicuousness of janitor garb.

****

Most the people he noticed were ‘normal’ pencil pushers however, God-tier’s were few in numbers and contracted out from Derse or Prospit (competing companies normally) for various jobs all over the place, he guessed it made sense they weren’t just doofing about like brain-dead half-wits in an office.

Träd Gron, the name of the fucking world named by IKEA dumpsters, must have been the crown jewel of humanities drivel because Dave and his partner were permanent residents instead of space police-for-hire.

****

Karkat was some sort of determinator because he had passed the same troll in green three times and had yet to give up on himself and his own wayward sense of direction.

****

Finally he stops.

****

“I’m looking for,” he turns to the troll, a moss blood, Karkat clears his throat, “I’m looking for,” he repeats at his usual volume until mossy looks up, “a Dave Strider,” he finishes.

****

“Uh, oh, he’s somewhere I would think,” brilliant, Karkat was surrounded by competent superstars all the time,

“he needed something.. _.personally_ cleaned,” Karkat sucks up his pride and says. It’s not phrased particularly well, the moss blood cocks his head to the side when he emphasizes *personal,* oops.

“Cleaning.” He gestures to the janitor outfit, he wished he brought a broom. Nevertheless, The moss blood gets it,

“oh, it’s the window desk next to the-”

“hey son,” a much older human man in a suit puts a hand on Karkats shoulder, Karkat resists the urge to physically naw it off with his teeth, “are you supposed to be up here?”

****

Karkat and the moss blood exchange a look as if to say ‘he’s a janitor, duh he is.’ A moment of troll solidarity in the front of human obliviousness.

****

“I would say yes, I have _cleaning_ to do.”

“Well our friend downstairs said a young mislead lad looking like you might be wondering up to this floor, do you know where you are son?”

****

Karkat sees red. Bright, bright beautiful surreal red.

“Look at my feet, oh, oh, where are they going? Away from you? Away!” he starts to scuffle to the right, but keeps going anyway,

 

“I don’t think I know where they’ll go because gosh darn I just don’t know where I am, probably somewhere with the rest of you suckling bastards on the human teet of

mediocrity. Your true calling of building and building the Great Pyramids of bland tasteless sentient life span, and you! A monument to patronizing paternal fuck-all crowding

out any last brain cells I personally had left. But that’s okay! I don’t know where I am! Because god-forbid I cognitize this shit-hole open wound of an office space with your bit

by bit work ethic and useless meaningless minimalist lives that eschews all logic on why you should exist. Or do you exist in wherever the fuck this place is? We just don’t know!

We’ll have to excavate later in the caverns of ‘smug people's faux concern’ and halls of ‘Karkat appears to be such a useless tool he can’t understand basic spacial awareness

anymore, but at least he isn’t content in inferior life design that beckoned I contentedly live in a cubicle!’ HahAHA.”

****

Karkat is being led off of the premise.

****

His bosses went over how he was on ‘probation’ and ‘under evaluation’ code words for ‘your ass is fucking freeze dried and fried in the oils of being *let go,*’ he sighs, he probably deserved it this time for going off like that in public in a place he shouldn't be.

****

Karkat takes the long way home, a five block walk of twenty seven minutes, fuck the bus, he was fine, just fine.

****

Karkat wasn’t fine. His crying on buses quota was one he promised he wouldn't fill anymore though.

****

He stumbles up the Prospit Inc housing facility. He lived on the second floor, but typical for his life, in a closet-like space that resembled an apartment in the way dollhouse shacks mirror working dwellings.

****

Janitors digs weren't upscale is the short of it, who would'a thunk?

****

He dodges past his friendly, ever popular, neighbor Nitram to get his way into his ‘apartment’ just in time for it to be empty _and_ dark.

****

He swore in his head, he’d have to move or pay rent now he realized. He might have no job, no way to eat, no one to turn to now that his eyes filled in, no ho-

****

Karkat tries to slide into his supor fast enough for his dark thoughts to not catch up with him. Unconsciousness hopefully counteracting flashbacks of a failure at boot camp, a failure as a Derse worker pre-custodial, a failure.

****

*********

Karkat had a long dreamless night. Thank Gosh golly jee.

****

He stares into his grubloaf in the morning and contemplates how he’ll tell people how this happened this time. It wasn't even a sane sounding series of events on his part. 

****

He sighs. On one hand he really wanted a buddy of his to give him the old ‘keep your head up’ speech that was a guilty pleasure of his, on the other hand… he had no words.

He couldn't imagine what he'd tell Terezi. Sollux. Anyone. Nothing that could sum up all this blatant tragic fuckall. 

****

Karkat decides not to sulk his morning away in the frostbitten numbness of his own moods. He goes for a walk, a very long walk, in the dull light of Träd Gron’s sun.

Of course he finds himself back at Derse-Prospit Inc (merged just on this planet only to fight the Rust!). Where else.

****

He’s in street clothes but no one stops him when he strolls back into the place lamely. He goes to the only place he can think of that might be distracting enough to keep him from fighting a bus or blatantly ripping off his own mouth for getting him into this.

****

He wanders down to the basement of Derse-Prospit.

Karkat believed in ghosts, he fucking had to. And he reasoned his life could be a horror story, and fuck he was ready for it.

****

“Hey, girl in red,” he calls, “I’ve had some really shitty days, you want to hear about it while you float around like some spooky deranged demon?” He hails her, he’d been on this planet in this dark cluttered storage area long enough to feel he knew her. Friendship on a lunatic’s level.

****

He hears nothing back, but sits down nonetheless on a downturned mop bucket, broken from that pleasant day they had fought the Rust.

****

“I met a boy." Karkat starts, "and I think he tried to ruin my life. I mean if he’s a fucking time traveler he knew this would happen, knew I'd lose it all, which means he probably deserves a smack from me so hard his mammalian offspring will have birthmarks of my fistprint.”

****

This felt weird, but satisfying enough, he continues his story, "I was having a decent enough day when..."

****

Nothing happens.

It isn’t until he glimpses a length of long dark hair nearby that he pauses the retelling to the empty space.

****

“So I’m going to go up to this floor where the apparently just fucking with me guy is, the floor where I would thoroughly word rage at this condescending fuckhole and get myself probation...ed,” he stops, the flicker of hair appears once more.

****

“Hello?” He starts.

Karkat wanders deeper into the ill-lit space, he was always a little curious about her, terrified, but now he had nothing to lose.

****

He rounds a corner of a covered stack of chairs and then turns past a discarded broken down fax machine.

“Ah!” Karkat yells as a figure with curved horns and a moth eaten ragged outfit floats out of a cabinet.

“You!” She has a mute stony face, impassible and aloof, her clothes are red and tattered, accessorized with empty white eyes to prove how very very dead she is. Like super fucking dead.

****

She stares at him in the face, a hollow swallowing look, Karkat’s hands shakes ever so slightly.

She turns again and starts floating up towards the ceiling. She stops, looks back down again, looks directly at him, then sullenly keeps going upwards. Karkat follows, scrambling to the stairs and up and out into the daylight.

He searches blindly for her in the new brightness, he spots her going down Turing Street, then he spots the horrendous catalyst of his downfall.

****  
****

“UGh! YOU!” Karkat crys up to Dave and his partner, they’re too high up to hear him.

****

He runs as fast as he possibly can to follow both of them and the very faint ghost girl meandering in their direction. They stayed on the outskirts of the city, the Rust on their right as they head deeper into the abandoned periphery.

****

By the third block he’s lost track of them. But there was only direction in this part of town: ahead. Karkat managed to run, lungs burning, head dizzy, up to a warehouse district. 

Now he was lost.

****

He allows himself a break to pant, bent over and huffing while eyeing the facilities in front of him. They are rows of uninhabited storage buildings, some functioning it looked like, some with a dusting of Rust like some foreboding haunting of destruction.

****

Karkat resumes jogging among them, swiveling his head every which way to locate the right one. He doesn’t have to search long before he hears a loud crash and distant indistinct cursing.

He swiftly turns on his heals in that direction and makes his way to a farmost building. He’s knows he’s in the right place when he glimpses the girl in red tatters floating through the same building. He made it.

Karkat pauses at the entrance. Now what. What was he going to do? Shout at them?

****

He gets out his strife specibus nonetheless, this one he kept from the old days, gathering dust in the storage of his specibus. A sickle in hand he goes in.

****

The warehouse is a large open space that echoes eerily, no one is talking but footsteps reverberate from the other side of the immense area like a drum beat.

Karkat is unsure if he should call out or something, interrupt them or not.

_Crunch_

The sound crackling wood hollows out the room.

On second thought… Karkat treads carefully, quietly that is, a ways into the building, half way into the dark crowded area he hears them exchanging words,

****

“Give it up Al, we know you’re alone and like freakin' cornered in this monstrosity of a construction, like really? Stop the robbing stupid tragic places,”

****

“Yeah, I don’t know if that’s gonna help,”

“Rox, no one likes warehouses, literally no one, and this is so dumb, robbin’ boxes of God knows what, bricks? Do they store bricks in here? Even he can’t be into this nonsense,”

****

“I don’t know…”

****

They pause, and Karkat’s ears perk up when another wrenching sound from the top of some stacks erupts.

****

“There he is!” Roxie calls, the two are suddenly visible as they float above the mess of tall rows, Karkat immediately starts jogging over to their location.

He didn’t know what he’d do there, but he was going to be there.

****

“Al!” They call, shouting follows, Karkat speeds up his chase when metal on metal sounds from on high. Karkat can make out the angry voice of a nasally youth,

****

“you two can suck a dick! I’m not gonna say it more than fucking once, I will literally eat you than show your brutalized corpse to your mothers while cackling if you keep coming after me,”

“I thought you ate us in this scenario, no corpse left,”

“don’t get your smart mouth at me,”

“just drop...whatever that is,” ‘Rocks’ expresses.

****

“Dear Roxy, my dear dear dumb girl, let me shed some light on the situation on who's in charge right now,”

****

A sudden light of flames engulfs an area above Karkats head, he finally has eyes on the action, the Roxy girl is dodging some fiery inferno, Dave is cutting at the air at a boy in a long coat, ‘Al’ he supposed.

****

The boxes are on fire, something was highly flammable and burning as hot as hell.

****

Meanwhile Dave and ‘Al’ became locked in a dodge-run sequence while the blue girl puts her hands together, summoning water from her hands.

“Oh gee, ya little shit, this stuff belongs to someone,” Roxy grumbles.

****

The two guys are getting farther away now, lower in the racks as the speed across the building, Dave flying, the boy is agile, if not slow.

Karkat pursues, keeping eyes trained on them.

****

A flame comes out of a long gun the fellow holds, a gun in one hand, a crowbar in the other, then a multicolor beam springing from his mouth frequently, an over powered shitstain in short.

****

A second later _another_ Dave appears from some sort of red clockwork, Karkat’s eyes go wide, these people were all another level.

****

However, ‘Al seems almost prepared and immediately smacks the new player with the crowbar, a sickening crack resounds from the Dave’s cheek, Karkat flinches along with regular Dave.

****

Nonetheless, it’s a good distraction and trenchcoat-halfwit is absorbed enough for the first Knight of Time to go in for a decisive stab,

****

“ah!” He cries out in pain and then pure fury as his side starts to bleed.

****

Dave pulls out the half-sword from his side swiftly, but not fast enough. The crowbar comes down on him, the impact sends him flying down, shades soaring off along with the rest of him.

****

He catches himself mid air, hovering close to Karkat who eye’s go wide as the bad guy's mouth goes agape.

****

Dave puts his sword in a defense position and snarls.

****

Karkat jumps up on a low box, “go fucking down you *gallant* sick fuck.”

He somehow grabs Dave’s lower legs and his weight drags them both to the ground, the beam soars over their heads and detonates the boxes behind them in an eruption of flames.

Dave’s eyes jerk onto Karkat below him, his red irises vast in surprise and adrenaline. Karkats own blood pusher speeds up to that of a high speed train, his eyes are. Red.

He feels a string spread between them like a tenuous wire of spikes and blood.

****

“What in the holly hell god-forsaken random ass ass-pulls are you doing here?” Dave says colorfully, “seriously this is the absolute last thing I could imagine happening, is this some sort of cosmic prank where Dave is haha, totally taken by surprise, like do you want to tell me what the hell?”

He seems more shocked then fucking grateful, Karkat’s face shifts to scowling at this undulating asshole, wire breaking.

“thanks for my life Karkat, you’ve done so much for not only me but the trash planet and you make everything better with jumping and oh yeah, again, saving my life,”

“I mean yeah, that too,”

“ugh,”

“where’s ‘Al?” Roxy’s voice brings them back to the reality at hand as she drops by to put out more ever mother grub licking flames.

“Bleh, not this a-fucking-gain,” Dave voices.

“I’ll-I’ll get him,” Karkat let’s go of his legs and jets after the kid, he’s going to do this, he’s going to live up to whatever it was, destiny, winning.

“You guys go guard the doors,” he orders, but doesn’t stop to see if they’ll do it or what they do next.

****

Karkat rounds several corners, he passes pallets and debris, he hovers over corners of this dusty warehouse. Of course, _of course_ , nothing is there, ten minutes pass, he’s empty handed.

****

He half-heartedly sweeps the last aisle to the door before retreating like a fur beast with it’s tail between its legs.

****

He spots a flying red God-tier kid, he heads towards them only to run headlong into a transparent dead girl.

“You!” He calls, she turns and stares at him with her large empty fish eyes, he shivers but nods at her, “thanks for, yeah,” he articulates crudely.

****

She passes right through him.

“Eck!” He jumps, the sensation of falling overwhelms him for a brief moment, tingling, and then she’s gone. He turns around to find the last of her passing through a box to his left, he jumps over it, well rather scrambles over it pathetically, but manages to make it over.

****

She’s gone. He does however spot some movement on the ground in the dark of the warehouse wall, he hops down to the floor.

****

“Hello?”

“Any crying for the others and we’re all up in smoke, heheh,” Dave and his partners enemy laughs like a crackling firework.

Karkats eyes go wide, that ghost girl was one hell of a helpful ghoul because there was the absolute twat of a human.

“What are you…?” Karkat eyes dart between the wires in Al’s hands and the the lighting it's connected to. His eyebrows furrow.

****

“BOOM.” He responds cockily, Karkat wants to punch him, Karkat doesn't know how we go about that.

****

“Tou’re going to fucking blow yourself up too??” Karkat tries to poke holes in his plan, maybe stop this without having to find out what combat with a crowbar, gun toting, magic mouthed bastard was like.

****

“Maybe I just will.” Karkat didn’t believe him.

****

“No you won’t, oh my fuck. Put it down.” He orders.

“No.”

Karkat fumes,

“what are you going to do?” The guy mocks,

****

However, that was also a good question. Karkat wasn’t a superpowered VIP, he was just some guy who happened to be there and was also a janitor.

****

But he was also not one to do nothing. He looks around, and then he keeps looking around, there had to be something that didn’t involve calling the Tiers-of-God over.

****

He spots a crate loader, he deftly maneuvers over to it, Al isn't paying attention, distracted by his own detonation scheme, wiring it all together like some sort of overconfident pyrotechnic.

****

Karkat jumps in the dolly and then frantically looks around, he could drive it, but first he needed it to start the machine. He had to hurry.

****

He looks under the seat to see for any dropped keys, the cup holder, anything, he curses himself for not being “street” or smart enough to just hot wire the mobile like in films.

****

Though if there is one thing Karkat could have faith in it was the stupidity of the situations he’s in and the people that make them up.

They're in the visor.

He can’t believe his luck, and also the idiots who store their dolly keys in a visor.

****

It didn't matter, Al was cackling from across the way, he’d obviously was almost done with the mechanism to set the whole place to, and he quotes, ‘ _boom_ ,’ Karkat starts up the vehicle.

****

“Drop the fucking wires you ridiculous trumped up nook-sniffing taint ball, so help me I will,” Karkat guns the dolly forward (at a very slow pace) “ram you,”

****

Al’s face looks unconvinced then goes slightly pale when the wheeled device reaches him at a quickened pace, he leaps to the left, but Karkat aims the arms of the crate lifter right to his lower body,

****

“effing! Ag!” His foot gets pinned between a crate and the arm of the dolly, he drops the wires in his hand from the impact,

****

“HA!” Karkat yells,

****

Al struggles against the arm, wiggling to get his leg free to no avail, it’s bleeding and jammed to the wooden surface.

****

“Dave! Roxy, blue girl, hey!” He tries to get their attention, with alright a touch of smugness; a type of confidence surges through his empty veins, he had done it.

****

Karkat face falls however when he glances back to Al, “whoa, what are you doing?” He asks slowly.

****

Al had a knife out, wielding the deadly looking edges with a wild glee, “you’re trapped!” Karkat presses the dolly peddle down to go forward, emphasizing how trapped he is.

****

“Shut up! I’m concentrating.”

“for wh-”

Al stabs the knife into his own left leg,

“what the fuck.”

“Ah!” He screams then keeps sawing through own leg with the nasty looking blade,

“oh yea, genius, being legless will make getting away easier,” Karkat somehow manages to roll his eyes through the gruesome display, “knock it off!” Karkat reaches towards the knife, Al pauses to slash at him,

“hey kid,” he says somehow very calmly, “when I get out of this,” he takes the knife up to his throat and then mimics a slashing motion.

Karkat's blood runs marginally cold at that moment.

“I’m going to fucking come for that stupid look on your face, and then feed you your own legs to you while I tear you apart.”

“Shut, shut up.” Fuck, fuck that wasn't his strongest threat and colorful threats were in his repertoire.

“Hhahee,” He laughs which turns into a scream when he cuts through more flesh from his leg like piecing out grubcake at a pedigree celebration. Karkat almost pukes his breakfast up. He’s at the bone.

****

“what the fuck is happening over there, Roxy come over here! And like alpha Dave,”

“Dave!” Thank God.

“No seriously, what the fuck is going on.” He stares over the dolly,

“You’re own demise!” Al announces like a loon,

“oh right, says the newly one legged wonder, also do you think you're gonna get that done before they arrest you?” It is Karkats turn to sound sure of himself, “you’re a bulge-licking idiot,” he snarls.

Al though somehow managed to push himself away from the crate, shit, he’d ripped his leg up bad enough to not be pinned anymore,

“stop!” Karkat had no idea what he could do, but Al landed by the explosive wires already.

Karkat eyes looked up to meet Daves, “we need to get out of here,” he murmurs numbly.

“Dude, you're gonna have to get me up to speed here, because I am 9/10 confused a.f. about what this,” he gestures at them, “is. I’ll be right down.” He floats down to where they are,

“no!” Karkat jumps through the dolly window up onto the upper crate, and running headlong into Dave who grabs him by the shoulders, holding his body aloft.

“Yes!” gibbers the explosive nut,

Karkat spots Roxy on the periphery and another Dave in the distance.

****

He opens his mouth to explain this as shortly as possible, but the explanation is drowned out by a blast.

“Fu-” Karkat is hurtling through the air, Dave is spinning him around, they are both pushed flying back, this time out of the warehouse windows in a flurry of glass, wood and fire.

****

 

The next thing he remembers is blinking into the light of the too bright afternoon, greeted by a high pitched ringing in his ears. It’s a silver muffling sound that contracts the world into white noise.

****

He coughs from the smoke billowing from the building next to them.

Karkat rolls over onto his front and just fucking aches throughout his entire form. It’s only after he partially got up did he spots the body.

****

His jaw goes slack, face contorting into horror as he spots the bloody person next to him. It’s Dave.

Karkats heart jumps into his throat, he can feel the prickle of tears start in his eyes from shock and the dead weight of a guilt falling on his shoulders.

Oh God.

****

Karkat hears something over the din of ringing flat noise.

****

“What?”

“I SAID ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” A yelling Roxy comes over to him, trying to express herself over the explosion-trauma to the ears.

“I THINK SO,” he replies absently, “BUT, BUT,” he gestures helplessly at the motionless figure next to him, blood, glass and wood decorating him like a tomb.

****

Roxy’s eyes are wide, but she nods solemnly, not nearly freaking the fuck out as much as Karkat needs her too.

****

“DID YOU SEE AL?”

He shakes his head.

“MAN WE SUCK AT THIS,” she laughs almost wildly, “I NEED A DRINK.”

Karkat is not paying attention to the blue girl, but he starts waving frantically at the tattered Dave guy when he spots him.

“OH! Davie.”

“CAN ANYONE ELSE HEAR ANYTHING?”

Karkat messes with his ears, but just shakes his head.

“NO? OKAY. GOOD... ARE YOU TWO ALRIGHT?”

“I think so!” Roxy is shouts at a lower volume.

“NO!” Karkat finds his voice, they turn to him, “HE’S, HE’S DEAD! Oh fuck, oh fuck, everything is fucked, I don’t, I don’t.”

Karkat thinks he starts hyperventilating.

“RELAX.” Alive Dave places a reassuring hand on Karkats shoulders, he eyes strangely expressive without shades and appearing sympathetic, “THAT WAS ONE OF THE DUMBEST DEATHS I’VE EVER SEEN. LITERALLY JUST EXPLODED OUT OF THE FUCKOSPHERE, NOt herioc, he’ll resurrect.”

A silence descends, Karkat is still watching the body with slack shoulders and keen distress.

“Y’all want to go home then?” Roxy asked, Karkat hears her fairly well as the ringing recedes.

“Oh hell yes,”

They turn to leave, battered and bruised but three out of four of them in one piece,

“hey!” She calls to Karkat, “you too buddy, that was really something back there, we need to go back and work out ‘Al stuff with you. Plus that was pretty rad!”

Karkat doesn't reply, he eventually runs up next to them, quite and contemplative. This is what he wanted. This is what he wanted.

He does manage to catch Dave’s look of forlorn, a deep momentary frown he gives his other self as they walk away. The pinprick of tears still sting in Karkat’s eyes, he swears he’ll Knight up and protect the fuck out of whatever happens next, whoever.

****

“Did any else see a transparent person. Am I going crazy? Like a ghost-girl in the not-flesh.”

Roxy laughs at him good naturedly, Karkat doesn’t.

****

*********

Bonus:

Karkat was the third day into his new appointment on Derse-Prospit floor 11, assigned as to ‘stay close by’ and supposedly help figure ‘Caliborn’ out, it’s on this day when he makes the worst decision of his life.

****

He shows up. He shows up because it was only his third day. He walks down the hallway to his desk robotically, purposefully. It was going to work.

****

He feels it wriggles within him, he almost keels over, he almost squeals out loud, he seizes up mid stride. This wasn't going to work.

 ********  
  



	5. Prelude Part Two: The Muse of Frustration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: character death
> 
> Title chapter is in dedication to Hussie and "act acts"

Prelude Part Two

Dave can feel the thrum of the base in his veins, the ground vibrates under his feet and the flashing lights flare in his irises in time to the beat.

He’d probably enjoy himself in the mass of sound and color, he always had, if not for the fact he was tired as fuck. That was probably the point of course to going to the past right now, to keep himself on his toes.

He’s lost in the people dancing in time on the floor, hot and sweaty, filling him nostalgia for this kind of stuff. Clubs were a great place to be part of something without having to contribute anything for real.

Fuck, fuck, he was getting misty eyed over this diseased pit of where good music goes to die and at least three people were getting BJ’s in a bathroom literally made up of STD’s.

It’s grunge aesthetic mixed with bright mainstream lighting is probably why his past self decided to take John here for baby’s first club.

He gets to the side of the room in time to spot young Dave animatedly talking to John above the music.

He’s giving an unabashed cocky grin and explaining why this song had just the right amount of drops. Present Dave winces at this blatant show of pretension.

He wished he’d noticed how uncomfortable John had looked in the crowded area, he should have remembered his preference for open spaces or like had any social graces and/or awareness.

He watches as they make their way deeper into the group, Dave remembers the conversation well,

“man, in honour of your visit from farthest reaches of hot wet space purgatory I’m going to get the DJ to play the best fucking song dude, like lyrical valhalla mixed with swooning lips of the muses hopping on the dick of sick beats,”

His metaphor went on for a few sentences,

“yikes, that is some ‘sick’ music it sounds like,” John managed to get in a word edge wise good naturedly.

“lemme just get us on the line up,” Dave passed the DJ 30 credits across the board, he returns a cool smirk to the young airhead and gave him a low high five.

Past Dave made his way back to John in a little skip hop around the jostling people.

“okay we’re two songs in,” he announces,

“neat. Though do you think we could he go upstairs for a bit till it comes on?” Dave was conscious enough to agree,

“yeah man,”

They made their way to the upper balcony overlooking the dancers,

“so you’ve been living just next to here?” John asks, trying to catch up despite the fact they pester chummed every day.

“nah, I mean close enough but still not in the neighborhood, which is cool, but until I can actually work here it’s not that cool, which will be a thing in a matter of weeks I’m calculating. Robot DJ’s are on the out, it’s me. I’m going on the way in.” Yeah, Dave was a jobless smuck at that point, bragging about his unreal prospects. Which were certainly down with a case of black death at that point..  
  


John lets out a genuine laugh, “you’re mixes are probably the biggest thing I look forward to on The Golden Viceroy's longer trips, so I’m sure it’s in the bag,”

Dave blushes behind his shades, he liked John, he had always liked John.

“so what’s up with you? What space nerd is fucking up spacetime around these parts?”

“Illegal God-tier brawls.” John answers seriously, “here to shut down ‘em down, they are calling it ‘gladiator.”

“What? _Gladiator_? No Offense, that sounds kind of mad interesting.” Dave admonishes.

“not quite,” John winces, “it’s all mixed up with illegal gambling run by like this really shady mob. The Midnight Guys or something. Plus the fights are to the death, _to the death_ ,” He says earnestly.

“don’t...Not that that’s good or anything, like it sounds fucking against the law as shit but don’t you resurrect? Just, like for a sport, like nobody comes out with a fucked up concussion or permanent foot damage or what ever the hell happens in sport game. Sort of just….poof, and you’re back.”

“Most the time yeah I guess. But not if it is a ‘just’ or ‘heroic’ death, then you don’t and that sometimes happens in these brawls for some shitty reason,”

“what lol,”

“it’s just some really bad stuff going on, but we’re closing in on them.”

“yeah, I’ve heard, with your new partner,” he wiggles his eyebrows at him suggestively, “a partnership, hmm.”

“it’s not even close to that!” he thawps his shoulder, “we’re friends, and besides, I think you’d really like her. She’s cool and friendly, actually here let me give her pesterchum handle, you guys should chat,” he takes out a pen from his specibus, “do you have any paper?”

“sure bro,” he takes out a brochure to a new restaurant he was applying to, real upscale place, something Dave would at least try his hand at.

He’s not paying attention when John writes down Jade’s pesterchum,

“she’s also sort of a dog, did I tell you that? But that doesn’t really affect her much besides eating snausages everyday. It always smells like meat. Always. But she has this sweet garden on board too, and can play guitar and has the coolest grandpa I’ve heard of,”

“so this chicks the shit to you,”

“yeah! I think we could all be friends.” John says not picking up on Dave still being lewd, and a little jealous.

He laughs naturally nonetheless, John was a cool guy.

“well I’m all for that,”

“hell yes, I also have this movie I wanted to see, we could all go to it,”

“wait, wait, wait, it’s coming on! And yeah, that sounds cool,” Dave replies distractedly, “c’mon down to the pit! Drop it like it is hot, and that hot thing is dropped, and the thing that is dropped is just like ‘what temperature am I?’ And it’s like super fucking hot.” Dave is dancing on the balls of his feet, John complies going down with him.

Present, future, whatever Dave bobs his head along to the beat, it _was_ a really good song. He closes his eyes and tries not to concentrate on what happens next, trying to relax knowing the following part is intrinsic to the story.

Time travel was such a degrading motherfucker, riding on satan's annoying dick that just did nothing for him.

In his mind's eye though he can see himself dragging John straight to the speakers, crowded with people and ear thumping noise, the DJ box directly in front of them.

It was almost a perfect moment. Dave couldn’t dance, but he could jump up and down, John could dance, and he was even shaking it for once with Dave.

He smiled at the memory.

 

It's interrupted by a giant blast that decimates the near side of the room, wrecking the wall, creating a shockwave that threw debris and people backwards like play toys.

Fire opened up across the club like confetti spread by an enthusiast three old: fucking tossed every where haphazardly.

Future Dave had earplugs in, he put them in right beforehand, but the other people, the ones who could be on their feet standing, crawling around miserably in a mist of silver noise, and moaning, distant screams.

Dave frowns so passionately he’s certain it becomes an audible ‘fuck this.’

But fuck that. He had a job to do.

“Dave?! Dave?!” John is flying around in a frenzy, a rabbit possessed by panic that criss-crosses the room blindly, calling out for his friend.

Dave was not long for this world when John finally spots his red shirt peeking out from under a heap of drywall. It was a fucking mess.

“oh no, oh no, oh God no,” John chants to himself as a mantra, “please be okay, be okay, please be okay.”

He digs Dave's lifeless body out the rubble, blowing some away with with his windy powers but mostly digging in to it till his nails were bloody.

Dave was not a pretty sight. Present-future Dave cringes at it and wishes in the core of his being John wouldn't have to see this, see this scrap of a friend reduced to rag doll toyed with by a violent little kid.

His neck is the worst part, a long angry gash in it that leaks out Dave's life blood.

He wished he didn’t have to see John cry.

He picks up Dave's body bridal style and floats upward, “we need an ambulance! A healer, anybody,”

That was Dave's que. He floats up in his black cape and roughed up voice, disguised as a phantom.

“go to the tallest part of the city.” He orders, “there will be a floating purple slab, you have to place the body there as soon as you possibly can,”

John stares at him blankly, face tear stained and empty,

“this is your only chance! Go now, asshole!” Dave had to be harsh, it was the only way.

“I-I, yes!” He agrees, John was the type to have faith in commands from absolutely nowhere. And thank God for that.

He wisps away in a whirl of speed and air.

Dave takes a momentary last survey of the club, the bloody patrons and broken floor. It would be never open again. A welling of sadness bubbles just below the surface, but wasn't in the cards for Dave to help, but also wasn't in his nature to fucking breakdown in the middle of whatever.

He follows John at a slow pace, not because he had to, but mostly for curiosity’s sake. He hadn't seen this part of the story before, mostly since ya know, he was mostly dead during it.

He maneuvers his way upwards, glancing at the oncoming ambulance and fire trucks rushing through the air towards them. Dave thinks real straight up good thoughts at them going into the belly of the beast that was the giant crash site.

Some reported it to be a phantom meteor. Others called it a genuine bomb set off by the Midnight Crew when Prospit feds got too close to them. Some thought it was a juju that somebody messed with. Who knew.

Dave follows John up to the highest point of the city, a city that was part of the space station that served as a giant human fester-nest. The underbelly of human infrastructure and really sweet place to party and lose yourself in. Get really lost in.

It also housed a lot of business headquarters, and consequently in tandem two quest beds and a singular sacrificial slab from Derse.

A crowd is already surrounding the rock.

Dave’s eyes search around for one familiar face, passing over the worried empty canvases of people's faces, family and friends trying, pleading, that their loved ones can ascend when they place them there.

It was all so fucking tragic it made Dave want to eat a raw egg while punching himself in the face.

Ah, but there she is.

An elegant troll in an evening gown carries a young women in purple cocktail dress, they arrive on a astro-bike that wheels its way up to the hard surface.

Her middle is bloody and wrapped in a loose curtain to try to curb the blood loss.

Rose was caught in the blast just like Dave was, during date no less, and almost departed to the afterlife when Kanaya lowered her motionless form onto the slab.

Green tears pepper her high cheekbones and Dave's heart squeezes.

Dave himself is already placed on the magic rock what-ever-the-fuck and John was floating nearby talking as a nervous wreck to an old couple.

This is where the show began. He remembered this part clearly, it was his new born-babe moment, becoming a new and shiny Dave 2.0.

It happened during a surge of memories: his own jumbled up with a strangers, with Roses.

You were honestly not supposed to ascend with anyone else, fucked up things happen otherwise like dying on a sacrificial slab with your dog….and absorbing your dog.

Rose and Dave happened to turn out alright, but not before they each got a slide show of the others life, like privy to their most fucked-up secret thoughts and all.

It came in a flash of passing memories: a saturated childhood spent in homeschooling, violin practice, an overbearing mother that permeated vodka and a sting of isolation.

A birthday party passed by where she passively aggressively adds black licorice icing. Barely anyone touched it.

Burying a dear dead cat, crying over the dead cat like she never had before.

Dreaming of maybe leaving her life behind, cursing her mother, Fanfiction, secret thoughts galore.

Learning to ride a pony. Falling off a pony.

Making a friend on the internet, some troll, some human.

He watches as she goes off to college on a foreign planet, actually graduated college with a degree in English and thoroughly settled down from being a prickly angry teen.

She meets her girlfriend. A beautiful alien fashion major who wanted kids. The slow burn to kiss her, to be with her, to introduce her to everyone she knows and bring her into the fold of herself.

It was a montage of fucking tooth decay and weird invasive-spacious celebration.

But he also see’s her reliving his childhood.

One less of alcohol soaked living room carpets and more one of sword fights, bruises, skipping school, avoiding people.

A childhood on New Earth (previously named Persephone) defined by survival. With jokes, and being so fucking cool it was unreal.

She see’s him go to Uni. she watches him drop out of Uni and move to Space Station Epsilon to make his way as a DJ. Basically also for no good reason.

In short their lives are shared fully and unquestioningly, strangers unified in new fucking blood.

And then, at the end of the montage. They are both reborn. Colors cloud their senses and new pain springs in every single limb.

Their outfits become strange and foreign, a soft breeze of garb.

They are full, Dave feels the presence of Time, choking him with the tick-tock of an infinite cycle and inevitable life-death.

He stares at Rose, who stares back at him, their is nothing to say. Their hair are now a matching straw yellow and eyes now blazing unnatural colors. They are bonded together, siblings of the fucking slab-dad.

Dave had seen enough. He didn't need to relive the tearful reunion with John that hurt enough the first time. Not to mention the insta-overview with Derse on what his new life was going to be. Yeah that was a long ass session he could skip.

He takes out his turntables and spins.

***********

Dave goes in to lend a hand in a few space battles, apprehending convicts and helping that alpha-Dave not get his face blown in.

He only does a few because he’s tired and the point of this trip was to send messages, not kick ass.

It was good to visit his two year's spent in space though, him Jade, John and Rose had all been together on that golden ship, and at the time it even all felt important. Though it was kind of kiddy bullshit compared to the next league of fuckery, but a good time being together.

He met Roxy later, who was somehow best friends with in-real-life bro since it was a small fucking world and they ended as permanent partners on this fuel planet when the last girl was ‘retired.’

Dave spins his way forward in time, back to New Chicago.

 

***********

Dave remembered he was supposed to visit his doomed self, do some favor for that melancholy bent-paper clip.

He picks some random time two months from his present and appears in the stairwell of an apartment complex.

He finds room 13 and knocks twice, he should be home.

“what up.” The incarnation formally known as Dave opens the door and says to him.

“Here I am.”

“come on in playa,”

This Dave is almost too ironic for Dave, or maybe the word he is looking for is that he’s become fucking obnoxiously ‘edgy.’

This version of Dave had done some out of the time-stream shit and now they both knew he was a goner, not set up to live to old age. He'd survived thus far though, survived for a hot two seconds longer than anyone would have bet their money on that is, two years in full.

He had a loose towel around his waist and was pat drying his orange hair- dyed to most likely to differentiate himself. This was highlighted by the tattoo’s revealed all over his body: Sweet Jeff and Hella Bro comics, tombstones, ravens and two large wings painted on his back in an elaborate feathery decor.

Like he’s an angel. You know, like the ones that die. Or a raven? Whatever, too ironic.

Snake bites, gauges, a tongue ring, what a try hard.

“nice digs.” Dave comments, “the bead spread really ties it together,” Dave strolls over to the Sprite logo covers and sits down.

“it’s part of the package deal,”

“well, Dave _sprite_ , it’s good to see you getting on.”

Doomed Dave had reportedly gotten ragingly drunk and got online and changed citizenships from the entertainment biz, Viscom, inherited from Bro to the company Sprite. He literally chose a random soft drink corp and was like ‘hell yeah.’

“I don’t suppose you've seen one of my shows,” Davesprite raises his eyebrows,

“nah, sorry bro,” and oh yeah, and he was living Dave's previous dream of DJing the fuck out of a city. Sprite was chill about it, Dave barely was.

“so you got something for me here?” Dave looks around thoroughly wondering what this was about, he eyes a picture of Davesprite and Jade on his bed sill. She was kissing him on the cheek while they both sat in front of Disney Planet gates.

Dave makes his face as blank as possible.

“not to have awkward small talk that’s for fucking sure,”

“well, my services might not be needed, Dave Strider Knight of visiting and chatting it up about the weather. I mean what’s up with the rain?” Dave leans forward to get up.

“the weather prediction is shit storm, and the advice is to stay inside until further notice till you collaborate with your attractive self. A nice long timestream reach around.”

“Oh gee, this sounds like something I’ll be into,” he responds sarcastically.

Davesprite sighs, “okay, you’re just not going to like it.”

“Not going to like it, okay? You got my attention.”

“I need to borrow our God-tier powers.” Davesprite had lost his when he went off script at some point. Just faded away like a bad dream- or maybe Derse Inc sterilized that shit, who knew, he never told.

“that sounds totally unnecessary.”

“space time is literally the heavyweight champion of ‘why the fuck?’ And by that I mean it all loops up into a bow, birthday present nice and shapely for one dumb schmuck with no know-how on what’s actually going to happen.”

“So what you’re saying is it’s for future reasons.”

“yeah, man.”

Dave sighs, “alright, I get it, I’m all up for playing by the rules.”

“Rules, better than doomed.” He remarks close to bitterly.

“Always thinking about that are we?”

“No. Sometimes I think about sex and cute animals in hats.”

Dave snorts, “is it strange we have so much in common?”

“It’s always a surprise. Who knew.” He says dryly,

“I want a blood test.”

“How about a spit test. We don’t have all day.”

“gross dude, so fucking gross.” He gets up nonetheless and shuffles over to the guy with minimal resistance from his ‘squick’ factor.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, incest.”

“I’m not sure that’s the issue.”

“We have an issue?”

“Omfg, let’s just switch it out.”

“Aight.”

Davesprite leans in, Dave leans backward, ugh, he wasn’t ready.

“C’mon.”

“I mean... put my stuff on first.”

He gives him a cheeky grin, he lowers his voice, “take your pants off then baby.”

Dave gulps, but plays along for fuckery’s sake, “only if you treat me gently,”

Davesprite laughs,

Dave rolls his eyes, “alright, taking them off,” he shimmied out of his pants and God-tier shirt till he’s down to his boxers, plush rump themed.

He doesn’t look when his other self whips the towel off and throws the outfit on. It’s almost embarrassing being around him, but also… yeah.

His mouth is on his. A current of mini heart beats strings between them, the flow of an unknowable bullshit power. Some fabric that held him together coming undone and weaving off his fingertips out of him and into this doomed lukewarm cup of tea.

Davesprite embeds his hand in his hair and tilts his head sideways, it opens Dave's mouth momentarily to let his tongue slip into his mouth.

He pulls on his lips and licks the side of his mouth, for reasons Dave lets his tongue enter in deeper. The tongue stud rubs up on the roof of his mouth and and his own tongue, the hard metal sends a shiver up his spine.

They pull away puffing air,

“this is so fucked up.”

“whatever nerd.”

They are kissing again, Dave feels the last vestiges of time leak out of him, the silence of the tick-tock in his head space is unnerving.

They play tonsil hockey longer than strictly necessary, exploring the inners caverns of each other's mouths, and pressing together in a strange push-and-pull dance.

Dave is sweaty and a little thicker in the pants then he would like when they pull apart.

He pecks him on the lips,

“stay as long as you want sweetie. Daddy has a business trip.”

“oh no, wouldn’t want to step over my boundaries and stay too long.” Pure sarcasm.

“boundaries unbound, do whatever you want.”

“boundaries already crossed as fuck.”

He blows air out his nose, “guess we’re not coming back from that one.”

“no one has to know Sempai,” he gives him an ironic wink against his better judgement.

“Jade would not care, like at all. But it’s not like I was planning on calling up the gals and bragging about hooking up with myself. No offense but that is low hanging fruit.”

“shit _is_ embarrassing.”

“whatevs, gotta jet, fight the forces of evil and stuff,”

“the key is the power of love,”

“I’ll be sure to do that if my fist doesn't work.”

"Well, try making out with them, I'm personally down and out," 

"ha."

He really is leaving of course and disappears in a red outline of clockwork.

Dave wipes his mouth off and wanders over to Davesprites bed, he already decided to exploit the situation when he came in and crawls into the covers.

He falls into a dreamless sleep.

………

Dave wakes up cold, tangled in sheets and in his underwear, disoriented from the groggy fog of darkness before his eyes. Someone turns on the lights,

“whoa, fuck,” Dave blinks quickly into the change and shifts his shades on to ease the transition.

"Time to get out sleeping beauty,” Davesprite sounds from across the room, his voice is strained underneath like taut violin strings.

“What’s up?”

“It’s been a long couple days, I need my bed, or you can just stay if you want and have some of them selfcest cuddles we’re building up to. A little Dave in every boner brush.”

“okay, okay, I get it,”

He rolls over and wobbles to his feet, “clothes….and also like my powers.”

“Here.” He tosses him the mess of rouge fashion a la red cape get-up.

Dave pulls on the pants and forces his head through the shirt hole, when he manages to get it over Davesprite is there and pushing their mouths together in a ash flavored kiss, harsh and unfriendly.

“Ow, man, what woke you up on the wrong side of the loop?” He bites, rubbing his bruised lips.

“whatever. There is your party trick back. Time to get outie,”

“sure, why not. This has been strange enough as is, I’ll head out. Bleach my brain a lil’bit…” He mumbles to himself and then shuffles to the door.

“Hey,” he doesn’t turn around, his eyes harden, “take care of yourself.”

“I always do. It’swhy I’m not dead yet. Take care of y'all too.”

He snorts, “sure.”

He leaves, feeling somewhat rested, but barely at all, he flashes over a few Chicago fights to give himself some backup, then goes along for one last message.

********

Dave is on a delivery, it’s in an alley if that could get any more cliche for forebodingness.

He waits. Of course he has to wait.

He’s almost on his last frayed nerve when a troll in blue wonders out of the building sniffling with a brief sickly cough. Ugh, Troll cooties.

“yo,” he starts, then clears his throat for it to sound deeper,

“Dave.” Aranea says, only mildly surprised. He’s only a little miffed she recognizes him.

“got a thing for you Serket.”

“information?” Her eyes light up, all eight of them, “because I’ve been thinking about the potential influences of time travel on our survival rates, and perhaps the ability to alter events,”

“I am changing events right now. Like at this very moment.” he counters before she can get too lost the forest of her own words.

“no, not quite my point, more like a reverse, to reverse events.”

“that’s cool Serket, and your experiments are fun, but I really do have a thing,” he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a small handgun, her mouth goes a agape, firearms were not her thing.

“catch.” He throws it at her. She ducks.

“oh, sheesh,”

“you didn’t need to throw it at me!” She jogs over to where it landed tersely.

“I _gently_ tossed it.”

“well, it wasn’t accurate,” she scowls at him.

“you ducked.”

"you're unpleasant."

She ignores him as he makes a face at her, instead she awkwardly reaches for the weapon as she kneels to the ground, she touches it and her eyes go wide,“a juju.”

Aranea then swiftly looks up, “do you know what this means…” Dave is gone.

********

Dave is at the office. It’s midnight on the fourth and he’s making his own brand of shitty coffee and amping himself up to go back to real life after, he didn’t know, days in an info-spreading ball busting spree.

He had been used to doing it randomly but he figured all at once was more efficient now.

He takes his coffee back to his desk only to spot a light on a at a station nearby. His eyebrows rise, that was Roxy’s desk.

He slides on over to it, maybe for a chat or a question on what in the hell kind of over time she was doing.

“nothing is purrfect, it’s okay, you’re going to be pawlright.”

“Nep, I’m not quite sure you,’re,” she sniffs, “understanding.”

Dave glances over the divider, he witnesses a Roxy with tears staining her long face and a curled up Nepeta on her lap patting her face. He knew they were getting close but… what time line was this??

Dave racks his brain, were they in the future? Present? The fog of coffee and grogginess obscures whenever this was.  

“you’re so purretty, and capawble! My favorite human I’ve met, _really_.”

“your such a nice cat-girl, I always liked cats, did I ever tell you that? They’re soft and aloof but like really sweet, I always liked cats,”

Nepeta laughs, “are you acting strange on that human liquid again?”

“not so much, not right now... I _am_ a human mess however, like I fucked things up for you, I’m not smart, look at all the stuff we haven’t stopped, mess up’s are dead people Nep, and that ain’t supposed to happen.”

“No! You’ve done enough,” Nepeta expresses emphatically, but Roxy wasn’t listening.

“hic… not even pretty, those boys in receiving told me my nose was too, too crooked.” Roxy is really crying now, Dave wants to go dive in, tell her a joke, stop the stream-line of water leaking forth.

“Roxy, I whiskered you could see how great,” Oh. _Oh._ Nepeta had leaned in, Dave couldn't tell all that happened. That was lie, she was kissing her, “you are.” She kisses her again.

Roxy closes her eyes, they kiss in the lights of the singular lamp, dark around them and the hush of a lifeless office, and you know Dave just sort of hanging out where he shouldn’t. Shit.

He backs up, but okay, stays watching.

It was one of the weirdest thing he’d observed since Roxy was all about ‘da boi's' and this was as sweet as lollypops and kittens gal pal stuff.

They pull apart. Roxy smiles shyly up at her, she giggles back.

“I should thank you anyway! You made me alive again.”

“half-way.”

“it’s all the way to me.”

“is that so, all the way.” Roxy’s eyes go hooded. Even Dave’s heart skips a beat.

“mm-hmm” they are kissing again, hotter, heated, Roxy picks Nepeta up by the way waist and transfers her to the top of the desk.

Dave backs up real fast to the corner, and spins himself back to the past as quick as possible.

**********

Dave had experienced enough sexual content to get him to monumental levels of frustration, first from him-fucking-self, and now from the most random chick make-outs he'd ever seen.

Two ladies with a cat-fetish, who would of fucking thought.

He needed an outlet, and yes, more importantly, to help a bro out in his time of need.

He readies himself to freeze time in the hallway, and then positions himself in the nearby closet.

He waits.

It isn't long before Karkat came busting into the joint, he falters backward in pained surprise when Dave turns on the light.

"w-w-what?"

"here to give the best helping hand of a life time is what."

"you!"

"calm down. I am here to help." He places a hand on his shoulder, Karkat shivers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sprite thing is all about this thing I had where companies are in use instead of nations, which sounds like a dystopian novel but I was more like 'huh' and thought it'd be interesting for the story when I planned it out. Plus a great pun.


	6. The Losers of Love

Dappled light streamed through the metal hangings like scattered yellow leaves across the foot path. Red illuminated the ground around them and the carcass of buildings surrounded them like giant rouge metal mountains.

They were in the lower level part of the old city since, like most old cities, it had a crumbled underbelly, where they had just kept building on top of the aging parts.

Every few feet Dave stabbed the ground and cleared a path for them, reversing the flow of time, and making their way through the the inner mouth of the broken metropolis, poised to chomp down it’s teeth on them.

Dave is stony faced, Karkat is rankerous,

“come risk your life Karkat, it’s safer than being on your own, a murderous shit-thief is totally going to be more dangerous than the potential inhaling of poisonous decayed metal,” Karkat was basically in witness protection.

“We get it dude. You’re upset.”

“Don’t worry! As so kindly pointed out earlier, that’s my natural state.”

“Yeah, I guess I should be taping this for the Discovery Channel, ‘Troll in natural habitat.’ Angry and unhelpful.”

“I could help if you needed,” he mumbles. He _did_ still need to prove himself to these Atlas shirking bottled-necked sky holders.

“It’s cool. we’ve got this, just, stay close.” Karkat hurries up and resists the urge to grab onto Dave's cape for security purposes. They wander deeper into the sun lit red catacomb.

Karkat looks around, it’s eerily quiet outside of creaking and the song of a stray bird risking its life to fly within this crisscrossing iron graveyard.

“What do you do for fun Karkles?” Dave breaks the silence.

“Eat my own saliva and hurl myself into the sun.”

“So just normal fuck boy things. My friend: the pissy ball of fire.”

“Well, I know what you like to do for fun.”

“Rapping, long walks on the rust, not giving a shit. _Hating on Dane Cook._ ” Dave spotted Karkat’s Dane Cook sticker on his bag.

“Someone needs a heaping help of Fuck You for that.”

“He’s not even close to funny. In fact i think my funny bone up and dies when it comes close to that man’s voice, splits in two and commits seppuku while watching sad animals eat other sad animals, ‘help me Dave, he’s so unfunny I can’t go on, ahh,’”  
“Have you seen Good Luck Chuck?”

“I literally never plan to. Like you couldn’t lure me in with promises of sex and troll tail.”

“Sex?”

“And troll tail.”

“Trolls don’t have tails bulge munch,” Karkat rolls his eyes.

Dave turns around and flashes him a cheeky look, “that sounds like something I should investigate for myself.”

Karkat blinks at him rapidly, falling back ever so slightly.

“Hey boys!” A female voice calls out to them, easing the tension. Roxy.

“Found the leakage?”

“Yass I did.”

“Rox, you’re the whole package,”

“lol, good nails and a knowledge of all nintendoz? For sure.”

“How do you feel about marriage?”

“100% would do, but prolly not with any shades nerds.”

“darn, heck no,”

“just a regular heartbreaker, but you’ll be the first to know when I do find my Knight in shining hotness.”

“Better be the hottest man-meat in all space-time,”

“only type I take outside of Debit and credit,”

“just, where is this thing?” Karkat crosses his arms as he glances between them.

“Right, my fellows, follow me.” She flies to their left past a particularly large hunk of building. Dave and Karkat go after at a much slower pace than her flight path since Karkat has to walk.

“Watch out,” Karkat points up to a hanging infected chain link over Dave's head, he was also there to make sure none of these losers had needless deaths.

“Thanks,” he ducks under it absent mindedly.

They trot out into a sunlit section, a wide tube reveals itself in front of them, it holds in it a coursing stream of water that speeds by in a rush. A river.

The cities river transported ‘sanitarily’ through it’s sickly section.

“This is how the river gets into the city.” Karkat says disbelievingly.

“Problem?”

“No...it’s not what I imagined.”

“What else would it be?”  
“

Not a fucking exposed plastic tunnel that just sort of snakes it’s way through this land of proverbial land mines.”

Dave shrugs at him, “it’s worked so far,”

“with a few maintenance details.” Roxy points to a thin spike ebbing it’s way into the container from a split metal beam

Roxy takes out some tape expertly, Dave grabs the offending needle,

“can’t believe this is all it takes to containment that stupid river.”

“Fucking sucked for those kids,” Karkat comments, they turn and give him a stern look of ‘not now.’

“Pull it out!” He contributes.

“Yeah, just hold on...ready?” Dave exchanges a look with Roxy, she nods. He pulls, she immediately lays on a thick stretch of tape. She layers it expertly, nudging it to check for any leaks.

“Duct tape!” She crows, “gonna fix all these issues. Get me a tissue, cry over this work of beauty,” she pats the work happily, “though it’s not duct tape and actually specialized adhesive made by the science depot by that’s like besides the point a me weeping over this true art.”

Karkat can’t believe who he’s hanging out with now.

“I can really see why so many people we’re needed for such a delicate and labor intensive mission.”

“They have pay us for somethin,”

“Sure.” Karkat gives them a surly look.

“Hazmat peeps not halfway as safe as us when they do this,” Dave says in a bored tone.

“So you do this then…?”

“All the fucking time.” He turns for them to leave. They trot back for a little before Roxy pipes up, first looking between them curiously, “sooooo, Dave.”

“Yeah.”

She grins like a cheshire cat, “I’m not saying I have to leeeeaave but,”

“if this is how your gonna ask if you can fly off to do whatever I find it open to question.”

“I was going to go shopping. I haven’t done that in a century, Davie, you two can be alone. Alone, alone.”

Dave gives her a curious look, Karkat isn’t paying attention.

“Just clock out for me.”

“Hmmm.”

“Shopping.” He’s paying attention “does that involve Nepeta?” Karkat asks.

“Yeah! Ah, fuck, I forgot you two were friends,”

“For the most part. Sort of. Close enough. Nepeta is a nice girl,” Karkat says with shifting eyes, “you should check in with her moirail, it's the polite thing to do with all that time spent together. Unless…Humans don’t _get_ troll romance so just don’t fuck with her.”

“I’ve met the Eq! He’s uh, well made me wanna take a shower immediately, and I told him the same thing I’m telling you: ‘m not fucking with no one, trolls are so cagey about their romance like everyones hitting on everyone,”

“Yes. And humans want to be ‘friends’ with literally the world. A much better system.”

“That’s what’s up, humans are friends whores. Makes more sense than whatever the hell happens in y’all’s foursquare quart bouncing around balls of hate-love and love-love and fuck-me-in-the-face this makes no sense.”

“I’m not arguing the nuances and superiority of troll romance to two humans who collectively have the sensibility of a newborn whiney-beasts and frankly could not see a healthy partnership if it nipped them in the asinine face holes they spew epic amounts of *metaphors,* and *cool-kid* talk out of, like wow, I think I’m feeling worse about myself for even being in proximity to you two’s potential for mates.”

They stare at him unfazed, turning towards each other momentarily.

“Huh. Did he just say we’re bad at the romances and good at speakin?”

“Really owned us. Some real shit talking from a guys whose best matchup is a deaf smurf who can actually stand to listen to him _and_ be able to reach his mouth for some grey on blue action.”

“What is a smurf?”

“Heh, he’s saying you’re short.”

“A short amount of patient for that shit. I will eat you.”

“My legs maybe.”

“Look this guys angry rants are mad entertaining but I do have stuff to do.” Roxy articulates.

“Yeah shopping around for clothes you could just generate.”

“It’s that journey not the destination.” she says sagely, “have a nice walk back together, later!”

“Later partner.”

“Clock out for me!”

“Sure.” And she’s gone. Dave and Karkat share a tepid look as they exchange once overs of the other. It was a strange calmness between them.

“Roxy and Nepeta need to be careful.” Karkat finally says,

“let’s walk.” Dave sets the pace,

“I find their quadrant workable and I think it’s an interesting experiment but these things are always testy.”

“You think their flushed down the red stream don’t you?”

“It is a high possibility.” Karkat rubs his chin, romance was his thing, he ran a blog on it at home where he went over the topic in great depth, “I saw them role playing as some wizard and cat scenario. It’s that feeling of mutual pity at such wriggler activities that forms I think a strong base.”

“Wizard Moxy and The Mighty Huntress... okay I see your point gotta trust the bae pretty hard to go into that embarrassing shit.”

“Not exactly my point but I’m glad you're willing to engage in the discussion, I’ve been considering this for awhile.”

Dave blows air out his nose, “yeah baby, show me your time tables of my friends sex lives.”

“I wouldn’t call it a time table.”

“O h  m y fucking shit you keep journals on my friends sex lives. Hell nooo.” Dave peaks over his shoulder and makes a ‘bleh’ face. Ironically of course. Karkat frowns deeply back and flips him off, put out by the fact Dave was not actually taking it  seriously.

Dave fills the silence when Karkat doesn’t respond,

“Like, I get that people need hobbies, but nobody wants a loveless stalker documenting ‘their potential’ it’ll mess with their heads, people aren’t storylines, it’s just life whatever happens, happens. Can’t dictate all that with an iron claw that says who matches up with who like it’s a science or some predestined shit.”

“Granted. But you’re the type that I pegged for someone who was going to be alone forever. It’s in my journal. So no need to worry about any fucking spying on your tragic life style, you can be as free from any creepy storylines you like. No one is interested.”

“Harsh. But untrue, I’ve got too many honeys coming for me, it’s hard to count, need a degree in calculus and at least two equations involving Pi to solve for how many sweet pieces of burning love there is on ya boy here.”

Karkat squints his eyes at him, he can’t tell if he’s bluffing or not.

“What’s that?” Karkat suddenly stopped them, he’s eyes distracted by the hilt of a tall building. It’s the most concentrated deposit of Rust he’d seen, all at the bottom of a very tall, almost intact, looking building in this part of the abandoned city.

“Oh that. Good catch since it is actually a super fucking mystery.”

“What is it?”

“Most Rust they’ve seen in one place, but a lot of that building still stands. Might be even made of the stuff I say.”

“Is it the center then?” Karkat wanted to get to the chase. And also maybe understand what’s been going on the whole time in the place he lived, not like the news went over this.

“Could be. Could be where it originates. Could be some flash point or magics attraction. Who the fuck knows. I mean actually Rox has been investigating since she was like an actual scientist. Aranea too since she’s a curious shit that cannot be stopped from this type of conversation prolonger.”

“Great. No idea.”

“We could go look at it.” Dave sounds almost embarrassed he doesn’t know jack about the phenomena.

Karkat shakes his head, “let’s head back home.”

“Alright, but you still can’t go, you know, home.”

“Got someone to water my plants so we’re all dandy,” Karkat articulates sarcastically.

“Really?”

“No. Don’t own plants.” He responded sourly. “I do sort of miss my pod and all my stuff. I used to at least have that to look forward to.” Karkat relinquishes without thinking.

A silent snowfall settles between them, it was a long walk.

“I’m sorry dude.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He huffs defensively.

“We could go do something if that would make you…” Dave doesn't finish. Feel better. He wanted to cheer him up, fuck, platonic real-life pity for the tragedy that was Karkat’s existence.

“No. Fuck.” Karkat denies him immediately, they stroll in the quiet of one bird singing up above as it flaps above the debris.

“What would you want it be?” Karkat comes back around.

“Don’t know. Never answered what you like to do, since you know being a little shit and all, Dave fucking Strider, best Witness Protection agent since that shitty movie about Cheerleaders and Tommy Lee Jones surrounded by attractive youths since that is entirely engaging and not at all patronizing.”

“Man of the House.”

“Yes that, get myself a cowboy hat and round up the lassies to stop a killer from silencing your young pretty mouths...How do you feel about wearing short skirts?”

“Recreating a romantic comedy where I myself am the cheerleader role playing the intricate plot of crime and humor contrasting each other to create a whimsical but stern tone is something that I would not want to do. Under current conditions.” Karkat says first in a hot rush, and then a robotic finish.

Dave laughs out loud, boisterous and clutching his sides slightly, “what?”

“What?” Karkats eyes go wide.

“You’re such a trip dude,” he runs a hand through his hair and Karkat stares at him as he actually smiles.

“Maybe we should go shopping too. Get that skirt.” There is something lewd about his tone, Karkat turns his back on him. A mixture of embarrassment and trepidation at whatever Dave was about.

“Man you have have shit taste in movies...You should meet Egbert.”

“Who’s that? Your therapist?”

“A friend of mine. Whatevs. That’s the light of real day over there.”

It’s true, Dave and Karkat are almost out of the fire-burnt torture space and arriving at the edge of the healthy metropolis.

“Thank the fuck-lords that guide us.”

Dave snorts again, “I should record you and remix it.”

“Is that what you like to do?” Karkat was trying.

“After hating on Dane Cook, yes.”

“This is an extended fuck you for fuck you’s sake.” Karkat takes a deep breath, “fuuuuu-” Dave puts a hand over Karkats mouth. Karkat can feel his cheeks fill with blood from the contact.

“Derse is up ahead.” They find the corp easy enough since it too was on the outskirts and move up to the God-tier floor, Karkat looks around anxiously as they do.

He was still not used to this, it was still in his first couple ‘official’ days. He’d had a bunch of non-official days where they decided what to do with him until they saddled him Dave and co.

His official duty was to stop any stupid heroic acts like in the warehouse where one of them almost took a power beam to the face.

Karkat didn’t feel that way though, like he could be helping.

“There is a karaoke and game night at the local bar,” Dave offers as he gets on his desktop computer and Karkat languishes around behind him. A hint of hope is behind Dave's casual words.

Karkat waits to respond, to be told it’s a joke, however, Dave doesn’t yell ‘gotcha,’ and goes quite instead.

“Sure.” He gets out when Dave turns his head down and looks away.

“Nice.” Dave smiles. It was a long mission and the afternoon passed slowly but steadily by.

Karkat built at least too paperclip sculptures with Dave helping at different intervals, though Karkat tried to stop him for fear he’d knock it over like an ass.

Karkat is putting the finishing touches on a recreation of his hive when someone approaches him.

“Time to go.”

Karkat turns around slowly, “fucking finally. You’re paperwork makes this almost as lame as normal people’s lives.”

“Wow, I’m sorry we’re not glamorous enough for you.”

“That’s the disappointment that is life,” Karkat says in a bored tone.

Dave doesn’t nod, he walks forward like a stiff bear, “Godzillllllaaaaa,” He knocks the creation over. Like an ass.

Karkat growls in the back of his throat but gets up anyhow, this boy was going to treat him to some human entertainment, plus Karkat didn’t want to reveal he cared.

“Fucking inconsiderate.”

“Can’t stop Godzilla, man. He’s a force of nature, an unstoppable lizard machine in search of the love of toppling buildings over. C’mon.” He gestures for them to leave.

Dave clocks out for himself and then discretely for the missing Roxy. They depart shortly.

The boys wander through a few snaking alleys, a few Karkat recognizes, others not so much. His eyebrows arch up when he identifies the purple of Derse Inc housing, he turns a curious eye on Dave,

“yeah, the place is right by my housing, makes it easier anyhow, and hey you’ll have a place to stay that’s not the emergency cots at the office.”

“You set it up so I stay at your home for a night.” He replies disbelievingly.

“That’s makes it sound almost creepy. It’s totally not, they asked me too, you know for showering purposes.”

Karkat goes pale but bites back, “so this isn’t some elaborate scheme for *tail*”

“NO man, that was joke, this is completely legit, if not sort of hinged on the bar. I’m not that sort of dude.” Dave actually sounds stressed at Karkat’s implications.

“I was almost in the royal guard I’m not that concerned Dave.” Karkat reassures, he doesn’t want this God-tier freaking out about him, or Dave assuming Karkat was sort of vulnerable tinkerbull lusus.

“So let’s find your destination. The ‘fun Froghead night activities,” Karkat repeats the advertisement Dave showed him from the email.

Dave leads him down a flight of dingy steps to the door of bar, a froghead grinning on the glass, Dave nods at a burly man at the door.

“He’s cool.” Dave juts his thumb at Karkat. Karkat slips into the door himself. It’s a surprising bright location, different colored lights illuminate the bar stools and small tables. A stage is located at the side, more of an elevated platform but some people were already facing it like it was the Opera.

The faint smell of smoke carries through the air though no one is seen smoking, people play cards in one corner and a lot of young people sit at the bar chatting amiably to one another, a young troll is even among them. A mustard blood, huh.

Karkat laid his ears to the side of his head apprehensively, he hadn’t done something like this in ages. He didn’t know what to expect.

Dave immediately orders a drink at the bar.

“Do trolls drink any mind-altering substances? I forgot,” Dave says.

“No.” Karkat asserts to him, “unless you can suffer through sopor and you’re really not supposed to ingest that pan-breaker.”

“Trolls really have a thing withs pans don’t they. Which is a good thing.”

Karkat has no idea what he’s talking about, not a new development,

“we have some grub sauce mixed with whiskey, some trolls like that,” the bartender pipes up.

“Sure, cool.”

“Wait,” Karkat reaches out to stop him,

“It’s on me.” Dave hand waves his protests. Karkat accepts with a slight nod, he was trying new things. Most of which were Dave Strider.

Before Karkat can count the seconds they are perched around a perfectly circular table awaiting the first activity: trivia night.

He was not excited. Dave seemed relaxed, if not disengaged.

The questions are straightforward, and Dave was surprisingly capable.

“Just a well-spring of useless information, I know,” he says after he gets the question about the first human industrial revolution right.

Karkat is also mildly to extensively proud his troll heritage comes in handy when quite a few questions relate to troll culture and the first contact. Humans had a weird fascination with that.

During the game Dave does however get progressively worse with his intake of drink, progressively worse and prone to answering ‘that’s what should said,’ and ‘not if you’re doing it right.’

Many of the youths tried to copy the behavior and Karkat almost has a migraine by the end of the game.

“Your mom’s dick!” Someone yells when the question is asked who was the first space explorer in quadrant Delta when the White Horse plague was on the rise. Your mom’s genitals apparently.

Karkat of course had no idea, one of the more sober University students answers Riverrain Johnson, he had no idea who that was.

They are very close to third place though and honestly some blood thirst to win was rising in him.

The last question of the night comes on,

“who played this quirky heroine in the blockbuster hit of the late 80’s When Harry Met-”

“MEG RYAN!” Karkat yells before the question is finished, all the eyes in the bar become trained on him. Karkat’s eyes are balls of heated fire, his time had come, and he had seized it.

“C-correct,” the announcer gets out.

The announcer parcels out the prizes, “....and third place goes to Team.... Swag. Two free pizzas at the local Deli's Pizzeria and one set of drinks on the house.”

“Hell fucking yes!” Dave pumps his first in the air and hugs Karkat around the neck, giving him a sloppy inebriated kiss on the cheek, “that was so sick dude.”

Karkat allows himself a small smile, his cheeks flaring up while he looks at the ground. It was a very interesting tile.

“Okay. We should get you home.” Karkat announces as he takes Dave by the arm.

“Oh c’mon, just one song.” Karkat blinks, Dave points to a machine they are pulling out from the back, “I haven’t done this in so long time since Roxy quit the wicked elixir.” He shakes his beer as an indication.

“Are you sure you won’t feel the sincerest version of shame in the morning at making yourself open to public judgement if I let you do this?” Karkat questions him.

“No way. I would do this in my most sober state, for real.” Karkat doesn’t believe him.  
  


He lets this go though, Karkat is slowly beginning to have what the yocals would call fun, and a ‘good time.’ Things that had come few and far between lately.

Karkat watches as a barely young adult female belts out a version of My Heart Will go On, it makes Karkat ruefully wish for his grub-whiskey to have more effect on him. Alas, this would burned into his brain like a tattoo of the worst adaption of Titanic he could witness.

The next was the mustard blood himself, he sings one of the few troll songs on the list, a military march, since almost all Troll music was military marches.

It’s not bad and Karkat finds himself blinking slowly at the low blood and nodding his head along,

“he’s not bad,” Karkat comments sidelong to Dave who was sitting ever closer to him.

Dave doesn’t reply and just gives him a look that is definitely not a smile.

“I’m on the docket next!” He calls out,

“Yes you are Mr. Strider.” The words are measured and accompanied by fixed eyes. Karkat can’t tell if the announcer is flirting or being sarcastic, either way Karkat scowls at him.

Dave gets up and strikes a poise most unabashedly. Karkat can’t tell if it’s ironic, drunken, or this guy is really just a huge dork.

The song starts playing, Karkat doesn’t recognize it but it’s a sultry beat if he ever did hear one.

“Lord almighty,” Dave gyrates, “I feel my temperature rising. Higher, higher, higher,”

Dave swivels his hips around suggestively as he sings marginally in key, his hips move, Karkat can feel himself heating up around the collar, he can feel a lot things heating up.

“Boy, boy, boy,” Karkat’s heart almost stops, is he looking at him? Were humans supposed to be attractive?? “You gonna set me on fire. My brain is flaming, I don’t know which way to go.”

Karkat swears he flicks his body at him. Lord almighty indeed.

Karkat can barely contain himself by the end of the song, ending with a myriad of refrains going “Just hunk, a hunk, of burnin love.” A call back Karkat could remember to an earlier Dave phrase. Karkat keeps shifting in his seat to rearrange his limbs.

When Dave ends in a dramatic pose there is a chorus of clapping, the singing wasn’t great, but Dave was into it, which always drew a crowd in. Karkat suddenly wanted to cover him a curtain and hide the body away.

“Thank you, thank you everyone.” He gives a sloppy bow and heads off the platform, and by heads Karkat means he stumbles headfirst off of it. The announcer who worked there caught him, grabbing him around the chest in what Karkat found to be an unnecessary way.

He narrows his eyes and streaks over there in rush.

“I should get him home.” He tells the general room, “he’s got work tomorrow.” And he probably did.

“We know Dave, he’s up to go hard.” The other, older man responds good humoredly.

Karkat doesn’t like it, he doesn’t argue either, just yanks Dave by the shoulder out the place, taking on his weight and dragging up and out into the night air.

A chills nips at his nose and shakes Dave to get him to pay attention.

“You’re apartment.” He asserts, “where?”

Dave is distracted from his stupor long enough to direct him into the purple building and to the elevator.

“Sixth floor,” he slurs out. They wait as the only noise is the woosh of the elevator ascending.

“Thanks for doing this.” Dave says.

Karkat shrugs, “free service.”

“No, really.”

“We’ve been thrown together. Feelings of friendship abound, predestined by your future self. Wow.”

“Huh.”

It’s almost awkward in the elevator, Karkat is still reeling from the earlier display of blatant sexuality.

“What was that song?”

“Elvis.” He declares, “like it?”

Karkat doesn’t know how to reply, did he like it was one way to put it.

The elevator dings to announce their arrival, Karkat couldn't leave him hanging.

“You looked like you had a good time.” He anti’s up.

“Call for a good time, 1-800 Sexy Girls Late at Night.”

Karkat snickers, but doesn’t entirely get it, Dave may have sensed that,

“late night TV ad. I’ll introduce you.”

“Sure, time wasters help with sleep I hear. What room is yours?” Karkat turns Dave around several times to point in the right direction.

“It’s 619. Go for it.”

“You have the key?”

“Probably.” He searches around his pockets and then tilts his head quizzically.

“Probably? Oh fucking jeez that’s good. Can’t wait for late night hallway bonding because we are superstars who remember important things. And by we I mean you used for the royal we because I would call it the King of grating aggravations.”

“Chillax. Like super chill, it was in my wallet.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Karkat deflates. Maybe he does have an issue. But the lax atmosphere is thawed anyhow.

“Nah, man, I think I’m coming to accept the fact you're a funny little dude with a trip wire so short it’s a like mouse whisker or some shit.”

“Um, thanks?” Karkat gropes the wall blindly before turning on the lights in the reasonably well put together apartment. Much bigger than his own.

“Want to watch the late night TV?"

“You need to sleep from what I know of humans. I’ll only help you out of your pants so far.”

“And what if I ask nicely, _then_ how far?” his voice is suggestive.

“Then I add another pair of pants on.”

“Haha, okay,” they get Dave to his separate bedroom with a large King size set in the middle of of the living space. Karkat begrudgingly admits to himself this could be alright in terms of living.

Dave drags himself out of the skinny jeans revealing two equally trim legs and a Karkat feeling increasingly frustrated. This was getting xeno in the way it made Karkat kept telling his brain to knock it off with.

Dave lies face down on his pillow and seems to be knocked out. Karkat looks around, seeing nothing, he wrestles the blankets out from under him and places them on Dave in a way that was almost affectionate.

He himself goes back out to the living room to find a pile of cushions already stacked up for him. Karkat blinks his eyes rapidly and finds his heart thrum in his chest, it’s a nice feeling in the way Karkat doesn't expect things to be nice.

\---

It’s nice up until he actually tries to fall asleep. The cushions are soft but they are not supor. Not to mention the abject horror of imagining what would happen in the future, what could happen.

He could fail to prove himself and be a troll without a home was a big one.

The second was being hunted down and gnawed on by a man-child with a grudge. Normal things.

He glances at the clock periodically. 3 in the morning. 3:30 in the morning. 4 in the morning.

Another huge factor is Karkat’s stomach rumbling, they had somehow missed dinner outside of nuts and a few pickles they served at the Frog’s Head.

Maybe, he could just sort of, sneak some? He’s up and out of bed, ready for snooping in the fridge. Face in the cold box is of course when he hears footsteps arrive to the kitchen. Shit.

“I was just looking!” Stealing from your benefactor was a bulge-biting move. He turns around to find a boxer and tank top clad Dave scratching his ass in the doorway.

“No, it’s cool. Not like I would yell at you for this anyway... Want some coffee?” He seems strangely relaxed.

“Shouldn’t you be knocked out?” Karkat ventures.

“Everyone reacts to the drink differently. Some of us sleep it off, some are fucking woken up at fuck all hours and drink coffee while waiting for the 5 advil to kick in. It’s a thing.”

“Right.”

“Help yourself to whatever you want. Coffee?”

“Thanks.” Karkat says as sincerely as he could, he wasn’t used to people being so easily generous to him. “Really.”

He shrugs and makes them both a cup of hot brown liquid.

They end up sitting next to each other at the counter in the hush of five o’clock, the whisper of daybreak peeping through the window.

“You’re not from here are you?” Karkat initiates.

“Neither are you.”

“I could be.” He spits defensively. He’d been there long enough.

“It’s fine. Here’s a good place,”

“yeah. Right.”

He shrugs, “no one can find you here, for real.” Karkat can sense Dave is talking to him in particular.

“Have a reason to not be found?” Karkat is getting very curious over this much more mellow, open version of this boy he was meeting in every other way possible.

He doesn’t reply right away,

“my bro isn’t someone I want to track down again.” He finally says, “maybe Dirk, but I got some stuff I want to keep farther away.”

Karkat nods slowly, it might be the exhaustion and the hint of the world being absolutely gone outside, but he feels like sharing.

“We all do.”

“The blood thing I take it?”

Karkat bristles, “go fuck yourself. It’s not. Not a thing. It’s a...” he searches for the words hotly, then deflates, “how did you know?”

“Dude you got all beat up in the crash. Blood coming out all over. Plus I figure any troll who wants to come out this far doesn’t want to be found. Or part of that dumb hemohierarchy system.”

“ _I did._ I really did.” He stares into his coffee, eyes trapped in the swirls of cream expanding before his eyes, "want to be part of it."

“Sorry, man,” Dave leans closer to him. Karkat shakes his head.

“I was in a military boot camp. I was going to be a threshecutioner, a guard.” He reveals bitterly.

“Were you any good?”

“No. Maybe. Some strategy stuff." He pauses, "but none of it mattered. Matters. I’m here now.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was saying. None of us are part of the past shit any more.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” He turns on him, “cause I sure as hemoglobin still have issues with what happened. Both my best friends quit military training after some murderbot found me out. And I had to leave. And keep leaving.”

“I know that feeling. I dropped of Uni you know.”

“Not the same thing exactly, Strider.”

“You almost died. I did die. We could be twins.” He smiles at him. Karkat can feel one just ebbing at his lips himself just for the absurdity of the situation. He begins to laugh in almost relief Dave was just sitting there nodding at his problems like they could be normal.

“Hey.” Dave gets attention, “that really sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“I’m glad you got out here. Didn’t get up and murdered.”

“Me...too. Most of time.”

“Well, now it should be all the time. Dave motherfucking Strider is in your life.”

He laughs again, Karkat turns towards him, their faces are very close, Karkat makes their faces closer, breathing onto his cheeks, trying to catch his cherry red eyes.

“I like your eyes.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes,”

Dave chuckles, “I don’t mind them.”

They are inches apart, Karkat’s lips tingling from the almost contact, eyes hooded. He smells alcohol waft through the air like a bitter tazer,

“you’re still drunk. Fuck.”

“I like you.”

He sighs, “tell me that again in the morning. Do you want to try to sleep?”

“Nah,”

“You can try my pile.”

“Is that a promise? With you in it.” He bites his lip while bouncing his eyebrows up and down.

“Okay, now you sleep on the couch.”

“I’m joking!”

They stumble to the couch located right next to the pile anyway, Dave holds his hand as they do, Karkat tells himself it’s for security purposes, so he doesn’t fall. He deposits him on the couch and Karkat curls up next to it, exhausted in the soft casing of fabric.

They manage to keep their hands clasped, it is somehow grounding, it is somehow making Karkat’s brain do little sighs and whines of relief. Like it’s okay.

He falls asleep.


End file.
